The Implementation of Covert Channel in IPV6 using Linux Kernel

¹ Department of Computer Engg, Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, Nerul, Navi-Mumbai, India
² Professor, Department of Computer Engg, Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, Nerul, Navi-Mumbai, India

^* e-mail: dhananjay.dakhane@rait.ac.in

Abstract

Nowadays indirect communication is used as a mechanism to bypass the direct communication network channel. Such indirect communication channels prove as a threat to information-sensitive systems that don’t allow leakage of information like Military communication. Developing a covert channel in the network requires some carriers like TCP Headers or Protocols. The only challenge is that it possesses strict semantics. If it is manipulated by even a single bit, the entire semantics will change. The packet will be considered as a forged packet and will get rejected automatically by a firewall. To avoid this, we have proposed a unique way of covert commumcation - TCP and IPv6 Referencing Model. In our proposed referencing model, instead of embedding any bit and destroying the semantics of the header, we are going to use the referencing method to send the covert bit from sender to receiver end. Thus the packet will appear a part of normal distribution and gets transmitted securely within the channel. Here we are using the TCP Sequence Number (SQN) to make this possible.