A novel storage covert channel on wearable devices using status bar notifications

Abstract

Covert channels have been used as a means to circumvent security measures and send sensitive data undetectable to an onlooker. Many covert channels in Android systems have been documented utilizing various system resources or settings available to the entire system. Nonetheless, this paper introduces a new storage covert channel on the emerging field of wearables that sends data to other applications, or even to other nearby devices, through the use of notifications that are normally displayed on the status bar of an Android device. In this paper, we present the design of our ongoing work for this covert channel using Android-based wearable devices. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of this covert channel using real equipment. Our evaluation demonstrates the functionality and feasibility of the proposed covert channel.