Exploring Covert Channel in Android Platform

Abstract

Network covert channels are used to exfiltrate information from a secured environment in a way that is extremely difficult to detect or prevent. These secret channels have been identified as an important security threat to governments and the private sector, and several research efforts have focused on the design, detection, and prevention of such channels in enterprise-type environments. Mobile devices have become a ubiquitous computing platform, and are storing or have access to an increasingly large amount of sensitive information. As such, these devices have become prime targets of attackers who desire access to this information. We explore the implementation of network covert channels on the Google Android mobile platform. Our work shows that covert communication channels can be successfully implemented on the Android platform to allow data to be leaked from these devices in a covert manner.