A Novel Covert Channel Based on Length of Messages

Abstract

Covert channels are widely used for secret information transmission on networks. Although packet length based covert channels have greatly enhanced tamper resistance, they are still vulnerable to detections due to abnormal network traffic. Thus, in this paper, we are motivated to design a novel protocol-independent covert channel that could deliver normal network traffic. We simulated our covert channel on HTTP protocol and analyzed its security and bandwidth.