Information Hiding – Challenges for Forensic Experts

A new article of W. Mazurczyk and S. Wendzel with the title Information Hiding – Challenges for Forensic Experts has been published in Communications of the ACM. The following video introduces the ideas of the article:

Information Hiding: Challenges for Forensic Experts from CACM on Vimeo.

Digital Forensics and Information Hiding

We recently published an article on the challenges and the future of digital forensics (IEEExplore link, ResearchGate link). When dealing with digital forensics, network information hiding can be, among others, considerd one of the key challenges that analysts face and will continue to do so. However, one other key problem lies in the nature of the Internet of Things (IoT). Our article is an introductory one for a special issue of IEEE Security and Privacy, providing an overview to those who are interested in the domain.

NEL: a tool for a Network Environment Learning Phase

We just released the first public tool that implements a so-called Network Environment Learning (NEL) phase for covert channels. This tool aims to support researchers in the domain of Network Steganography. More information: http://ih-patterns.blogspot.de/p/nel-tool.html

Information Hiding + Science 2.0

In a new paper, we discuss how Information Hiding can be combined with Science 2.0/Open Science.

Steffen Wendzel, Luca Caviglione, Wojciech Mazurczyk, Jean-Francois Lalande:
Network Information Hiding and Science 2.0: Can it be a Match?,
Int. Journal of Electronics and Telecommunications, Vol. 63(2), pp. 217-222, 2017.

Abstract:
Science 2.0 aims at using the information sharing and collaborative features of the Internet to offer new features to the research community. Science 2.0 has been already applied to computer sciences, especially bioinformatics. For network information hiding, a field studying the possibility of concealing a communication in networks, the application of Science 2.0 is still a rather uncovered territory. To foster the discussion of potential benefits for network information hiding, we provide a disquisition for six different Science 2.0 aspects when applied to this domain.

PDF Download: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316215336_Network_Information_Hiding_and_Science_20_Can_it_be_a_Match [accessed May 26, 2017].

CCEAP v.0.5.2 released

Today, version 0.5.2 of our educational tool CCEAP was released. CCEAP eases teaching network information hiding to students and professionals and is based on patterns. The changelog can be found here.

Find out more: a brief documentation on CCEAP.

This project is now also on ResearchGate

We performed some tiny updates on the content to provide a better explanation of our approach.

Another update is that you can now follow our project on ResearchGate. (All information is also and primarily available on this website, i.e. following our blog will provide you with at least the same information as you will get on ResearchGate.)

New Publication: Unified Description for Network Information Hiding Methods

We published a new paper related to network information hiding patterns. This time, we provide a way for a unified description of hiding methods (hiding techniques). In other words: if a new hiding technique must be described in a scientific paper, so that it can be published, we propose a clear structure for the description of the new technique.

S. Wendzel, W. Mazurczyk, S. Zander: Unified Description for Network Information Hiding Methods, Journal of Universal Computer Science (J.UCS), Vol. 22(11), 2016.

Abstract:
Until now hiding methods in network steganography have been described in arbitrary ways, making them difficult to compare. For instance, some publications describe classical channel characteristics, such as robustness and bandwidth, while others describe the embedding of hidden information. We introduce the first unified description of hiding methods in network steganography. Our description method is based on a comprehensive analysis of the existing publications in the domain. When our description method is applied by the research community, future publications will be easier to categorize, compare and extend. Our method can also serve as a basis to evaluate the novelty of hiding methods proposed in the future.

Keywords: covert channels, design patterns, information hiding, network security, scientific methodology, scientific pratice, steganography

You can download the full-text here (open access).