Binary middleman covert channel in ExOR protocol

Abstract

Covert channels have attracted serious attention in network and computer security since their first presentation by Lampson in 1973. Designing such channels can be seen either as a threat or an opportunity, especially in ad-hoc networks. Lots of opportunities were studied to implement effective covert channels in different layers of the network. However, most of the proposed covert channels are designed in MAC and network layers, in ad-hoc networks. In this paper, we want to establish a covert channel on the base of ExOR, a popular opportunistic routing protocol in ad-hoc networks. The proposed channel connects the covert parties in the middle of the existing overt communication. This method transfers covert bits by taking the control of the number of packets in the covert sender's fragment. The performance and detectability of the method is evaluated in this paper and the author's direction of future study is also discussed. © 2017 IEEE.