Title: A comparative study of covert channel attacks in Android with different parameters and detection tools

Authors: Abhinav Shah; Digvijaysinh M. Rathod; Yash Mehta

Addresses: School of Cyber Security and Digital Forensics, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India ' School of Cyber Security and Digital Forensics, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India ' School of Cyber Security and Digital Forensics, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Abstract: With the evolving technology worldwide, there has been an increase in technology usage. The internet has brought a considerable revolution in information technology, and cyber security is one of the fields growing at a tremendous speed daily. With the invention of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and machine learning, security researchers and experts will focus more on using these new technologies. Smartphones are now widely used for communication, social media, and multimedia. Here, the author has tried to focus on studying covert channel attacks through android applications and devices. The evolution of Android applications has been more than a decade, and it is continuing. In the past, attackers have found a way to create a covert channel to pass some sensitive information through android applications/devices. This paper has provided a comparative study of the different parameters used to create covert channel attacks and analysed various tools to detect such attacks. The author has provided a new approach to creating a covert channel attack in Android applications and showcased the theory along with the experiments and results.

Keywords: Android application; covert channel; cyber security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2024.138331

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2024 Vol.16 No.3, pp.304 - 316

Received: 10 Oct 2022
Accepted: 10 Jan 2023
Published online: 01 May 2024 *

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