scholarly journals Another Step in the Ladder of DNS-Based Covert Channels: Hiding Ill-Disposed Information in DNSKEY RRs

Information ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Marios Anagnostopoulos ◽  
John André Seem
Keyword(s):  
Network Protocols ◽  
Public Key ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
Covert Channel ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Covert Channels ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Data ◽  
Internal Network ◽  
Security Incidents

Covert channel communications are of vital importance for the ill-motivated purposes of cyber-crooks. Through these channels, they are capable of communicating in a stealthy way, unnoticed by the defenders and bypassing the security mechanisms of protected networks. The covert channels facilitate the hidden distribution of data to internal agents. For instance, a stealthy covert channel could be beneficial for the purposes of a botmaster that desires to send commands to their bot army, or for exfiltrating corporate and sensitive private data from an internal network of an organization. During the evolution of Internet, a plethora of network protocols has been exploited as covert channel. DNS protocol however has a prominent position in this exploitation race, as it is one of the few protocols that is rarely restricted by security policies or filtered by firewalls, and thus fulfills perfectly a covert channel’s requirements. Therefore, there are more than a few cases where the DNS protocol and infrastructure are exploited in well-known security incidents. In this context, the work at hand puts forward by investigating the feasibility of exploiting the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) as a covert channel. We demonstrate that is beneficial and quite straightforward to embed the arbitrary data of an aggressor’s choice within the DNSKEY resource record, which normally provides the public key of a DNSSEC-enabled domain zone. Since DNSKEY contains the public key encoded in base64 format, it can be easily exploited for the dissemination of an encrypted or stego message, or even for the distribution of a malware’s binary encoded in base64 string. To this end, we implement a proof of concept based on two prominent nameserver software, namely BIND and NDS, and we publish in the DNS hierarchy custom data of our choice concealed as the public key of the DNS zone under our jurisdiction in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed covert channel.

scholarly journals Preventing Potential Backdoors in Bike Algorithm

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-193
Author(s):  
Pavol Zajac ◽  
Peter Špaček
Keyword(s):  
Public Key ◽  
Covert Channel ◽  
Covert Channels ◽  
The Public ◽  
Weak Keys ◽  
Public Execution ◽  
Public Keys ◽  
Cryptographic Algorithms ◽  
Key Encapsulation Mechanism ◽  
Security Device

Abstract BIKE suite of algorithms is one of the candidates in NIST call for public-key post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. It is a key-encapsulation mechanism based on QC-MDPC codes with purely ephemeral keys. The security device implementing such an algorithm therefore needs to generate multiple key pairs in its lifetime very efficiently. In our paper we explore the situation where BigBrother-type adversary can subtly corrupt the vendor(s) of the security devices (e.g., by altering the standard algorithms). In our model, BigBrother cannot preload the keys or synchronize the key generator by a covert channel, but is able to learn the secrets of security devices by observing the public execution of the KEM protocols. BigBrother typically obtains the secret through the usage of (masked) weak keys. However, we can also imagine other covert channels embedded into the ephemeral public keys by some unknown algorithm. To prevent these classes of attacks, we propose that the standard should explicitly specify a verifiable algorithm to transform the required key randomness into a set of keys.

Study on the Solution of PKI Interoperation

2011 ◽  
Vol 271-273 ◽  
pp. 1136-1141
Author(s):  
Yong Li Ma
Keyword(s):  
Public Key Infrastructure ◽  
Digital Certificate ◽  
Public Key ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Rapid Deployment

A number of serious security issues have already occurred with the rapid deployment of electronic transaction. One approach to guaranteeing security is the public key infrastructure (PKI). PKI provides a structure of trust among its users or principals. However there are serious PKI implementation issues as different countries and different organizations may adopt different security policies and implementations. This raises the question of interoperation between these various implementations. In the paper, the author proposes a new solution using VA (Validation Authority) to achieve the digital certificate validation and resolve the general PKI interoperation problem.

THE PUBLIC KEY COVERT CHANNEL

Cryptologia ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-75
Author(s):  
Rodney H. Cooper ◽  
Christopher G. Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Public Key ◽  
Covert Channel ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals A New Quantum Encryption Scheme

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihail-Iulian Plesa ◽  
Togan Mihai
Keyword(s):  
Efficient Algorithm ◽  
Public Key Infrastructure ◽  
Public Key ◽  
Encryption Scheme ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
The Public ◽  
Rsa Algorithm ◽  
Concept Application ◽  
Cryptographic Scheme ◽  
Quantum Encryption

The model of quantum computation has advanced very quickly in the last years. This model brings with it an efficient algorithm for factoring, namely the Shor algorithm. This means that the public key infrastructure will soon be obsolete. In this paper we propose a new quantum cryptographic scheme which aims to replace the RSA algorithm from current public key infrastructures. We analyze the security of our scheme and also, we describe the implementation of the scheme using IBM Q SDK, qiskit. We run a number of experiments in order to build a proof of concept application that uses the proposed scheme.

scholarly journals Secure Transmission of Data through Electronic Devices using ECC Algorithm

2019 ◽  
pp. 130-135
Author(s):  
G. Banu Priya ◽  
K. Dharani
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Devices ◽  
Public Key ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cryptographic Algorithm ◽  
Private Data ◽  
Encryption And Decryption ◽  
Cryptographic Algorithms ◽  
Cryptographic Keys ◽  
Symmetric Key ◽  
Secure Transmission

In recent days securing the data while transferring through electronic devices from one end to the other has became a challenging task to both sender and the receiver. During the transmission of private data over the electronic devices may be hacked some times by the hackers. The data can be secured by using the cryptographic concept. This paper is about how the data are protected while transferring the data from one electronics devices to another using the ECC algorithm. Cryptographic algorithms plays an important role in securing the data against malicious attacks. The main goal of cryptography is not only to secure data from being hacked or attacked also it can be used for authentication of users. There are two types of cryptographic algorithms namely Symmetric key cryptographic algorithms and Asymmetric key cryptographic algorithms. Symmetric key cryptographic algorithm uses the only one key for both encryption and decryption process, where as Asymmetric cryptographic algorithm uses two different keys for encrypting and decrypting the messages. The public key is made publicly available and can be used to encrypt messages. The private key is kept secret and can be used to decrypt the received messages. Nowadays, many electronic devices like electronic phones, tablets, personal computers are in the workplace for transferring the data. Elliptical curve cryptography (ECC) is a public key encryption technique based on elliptic curve theory that can be used to create privacy, integrity and confidentiality, faster, smaller, and more efficient cryptographic keys.

scholarly journals Covert Communication Scheme Based on Bitcoin Transaction Mechanism

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Shanyun Huang ◽  
Wenyin Zhang ◽  
Xiaomei Yu ◽  
Jiuru Wang ◽  
Wanshui Song ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research Direction ◽  
Public Key ◽  
Covert Channel ◽  
Covert Communication ◽  
Public Infrastructure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secret Information ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Communication Scheme

Due to the unique characteristics of blockchain, such as decentralization, anonymity, high credibility, and nontampering, blockchain technologies have become an integral part of public data platforms and public infrastructure. The communication between the stakeholders of a given blockchain can be used as a carrier for covert communication under cover of legal transactions, which has become a promising research direction of blockchain technology. Due to the special mechanism of blockchain, some traditional blockchain covert communication schemes are not mature enough. They suffer from various drawbacks, such as weak concealment of secret information, cumbersome identification and screening of special transactions, poor availability, and low comprehensive performance. Therefore, this paper designs a scheme of covert communication in the Bitcoin blockchain, which takes normal transactions as a mask and leverages the Bitcoin transaction mechanism to embed secret information in the public key hash field. Specifically, we propose a novel key update mechanism combined with the hash algorithm to construct a covert channel. It ensures security and can update the channel to prevent the related problems caused by address reuse. We are taking advantage of the feature of Bitcoin that cannot be double-spent to solve the problem of burning bitcoin when paying bitcoin to a fake public key hash. In our scheme, both parties to the communication are anonymous, and the attacker cannot detect the covert data or track the transaction and address. Our proposed scheme was tested in real Bitcoin blockchain network, and the experimental results were analyzed to verify its security, availability, and efficiency.

scholarly journals Distributed data hiding in multi-cloud storage environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonel Moyou Metcheka ◽  
René Ndoundam
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Storage ◽  
Network Protocols ◽  
Secret Message ◽  
Covert Channel ◽  
Distributed Data ◽  
Comparison Results ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
Cloud Storage Environment ◽  
Audio Video ◽  
Multi Cloud

AbstractClassical or traditional steganography aims at hiding a secret in cover media such as text, image, audio, video or even in network protocols. Recent research has improved this approach called distributed steganography by fragmenting the secret message and embedding each secret piece into a distinct cover media. The major interest of this approach is to make the secret message detection extremely difficult. However, these file modifications leave fingerprints which can reveal a secret channel to an attacker. Our contribution is a new steganography paradigm transparent to any attacker and resistant to the detection and the secret extraction. Two properties contribute to achieve these goals: the files do not undergo any modification while the distribution of the secret in the multi-cloud storage environment allows us to hide the existence of the covert channel between the communicating parties. Information’s are usually hidden inside the cover media. In this work, the covert media is a pointer to information. Therefore the file carries the information without being modified and the only way to access it is to have the key. Experiments show interesting comparison results with remarkable security contributions. The work can be seen as a new open direction for further research in the field.

scholarly journals Third Party Certification of Agri-Food Supply Chain Using Smart Contracts and Blockchain Tokens

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5307
Author(s):  
Ricardo Borges dos Santos ◽  
Nunzio Marco Torrisi ◽  
Rodrigo Palucci Pantoni
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Mobile Application ◽  
Consumer Behaviour ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
The Public ◽  
Blockchain Technology

Every consumer’s buying decision at the supermarket influences food brands to make first party claims of sustainability and socially responsible farming methods on their agro-product labels. Fine wines are often subject to counterfeit along the supply chain to the consumer. This paper presents a method for efficient unrestricted publicity to third party certification (TPC) of plant agricultural products, starting at harvest, using smart contracts and blockchain tokens. The method is capable of providing economic incentives to the actors along the supply chain. A proof-of-concept using a modified Ethereum IGR token set of smart contracts using the ERC-1155 standard NFTs was deployed on the Rinkeby test net and evaluated. The main findings include (a) allowing immediate access to TPC by the public for any desired authority by using token smart contracts. (b) Food safety can be enhanced through TPC visible to consumers through mobile application and blockchain technology, thus reducing counterfeiting and green washing. (c) The framework is structured and maintained because participants obtain economical incentives thus leveraging it´s practical usage. In summary, this implementation of TPC broadcasting through tokens can improve transparency and sustainable conscientious consumer behaviour, thus enabling a more trustworthy supply chain transparency.

scholarly journals BESTIE: Broadcast Encryption Scheme for Tiny IoT Equipment

Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1389
Author(s):  
Jiwon Lee ◽  
Jihye Kim ◽  
Hyunok Oh
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Public Key ◽  
Broadcast Encryption ◽  
Encryption Scheme ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Key ◽  
Diffie Hellman ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
Encryption Decryption ◽  
Subset Difference

In public key broadcast encryption, anyone can securely transmit a message to a group of receivers such that privileged users can decrypt it. The three important parameters of the broadcast encryption scheme are the length of the ciphertext, the size of private/public key, and the performance of encryption/decryption. It is suggested to decrease them as much as possible; however, it turns out that decreasing one increases the other in most schemes. This paper proposes a new broadcast encryption scheme for tiny Internet of Things (IoT) equipment (BESTIE), minimizing the private key size in each user. In the proposed scheme, the private key size is O(logn), the public key size is O(logn), the encryption time per subset is O(logn), the decryption time is O(logn), and the ciphertext text size is O(r), where n denotes the maximum number of users, and r indicates the number of revoked users. The proposed scheme is the first subset difference-based broadcast encryption scheme to reduce the private key size O(logn) without sacrificing the other parameters. We prove that our proposed scheme is secure under q-Simplified Multi-Exponent Bilinear Diffie-Hellman (q-SMEBDH) in the standard model.

A CUBIC EL-GAMAL ENCRYPTION SCHEME BASED ON LUCAS SEQUENCE AND ELLIPTIC CURVE

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3439-3447
Author(s):  
T. J. Wong ◽  
L. F. Koo ◽  
F. H. Naning ◽  
A. F. N. Rasedee ◽  
M. M. Magiman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Elliptic Curve ◽  
Elliptic Curve Cryptography ◽  
Mathematical Problem ◽  
Public Key ◽  
Public Key Cryptosystem ◽  
Encryption Scheme ◽  
Secret Key ◽  
Chosen Plaintext Attack ◽  
The Public ◽  
Lucas Sequence

The public key cryptosystem is fundamental in safeguard communication in cyberspace. This paper described a new cryptosystem analogous to El-Gamal encryption scheme, which utilizing the Lucas sequence and Elliptic Curve. Similar to Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA), the proposed cryptosystem requires a precise hard mathematical problem as the essential part of security strength. The chosen plaintext attack (CPA) was employed to investigate the security of this cryptosystem. The result shows that the system is vulnerable against the CPA when the sender decrypts a plaintext with modified public key, where the cryptanalyst able to break the security of the proposed cryptosystem by recovering the plaintext even without knowing the secret key from either the sender or receiver.

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