Steganography for Cyber-physical Systems

Authors

  • Steffen Wendzel Worms University of Applied Sciences, Germany and Fraunhofer FKIE, Germany
  • Wojciech Mazurczyk Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
  • Georg Haas Worms University of Applied Sciences, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13052/2245-1439.621

Keywords:

Cyber-physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), Steganography, Covert Channels, Information Hiding, Smart Home, Smart Building, BACnet

Abstract

Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) have raised serious security concerns and thus have been subjected to intensive security research lately. Recent publications have shown that there is a potential to transfer hidden information through CPS environments. In comparison to these existing studies, we demonstrate that CPS cannot only be used to covertly transfer secret data but also to store secret data. Using an analogy to the biological concept of animal scatter hoarding behavior we exemplify CPS secret data storage using automated buildings.1

 

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Author Biographies

Steffen Wendzel, Worms University of Applied Sciences, Germany and Fraunhofer FKIE, Germany

Steffen Wendzel received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Hagen in 2013, Germany. Between 2013 and 2016, he led a smart building security research team at Fraunhofer FKIE, Germany. He joined Worms University of Applied Sciences as a professor of information security and computer networks in 2016. Steffen wrote five books and his research focuses on information hiding and security in the Internet of Things. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Universal Computer Science (J.UCS) and of the Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility (JCSM).

Wojciech Mazurczyk, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland

Wojciech Mazurczyk received the B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. (Hons.), and D.Sc. (Habilitation) degrees in telecommunications from the Warsaw University of Technology (WUT), Warsaw, Poland, in 2003, 2004, 2009, and 2014, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Institute of Telecommunications, WUT, where he is the Head of the Bio-Inspired Security Research Group (bsrg.tele.pw.edu.pl). His research interests include bioinspired cybersecurity and networking, information hiding, and network security. He is involved in the technical program committee of many international conferences. He also serves as a reviewer for major international magazines and journals. Since 2013, he has been an Associate Technical Editor of the IEEE Communications Magazine (IEEE Comsoc).

 

Georg Haas, Worms University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Georg Haas is a bachelor’s student of applied computer science and a student assistant at the Centre of Technology Transfer and Telecommunications (ZTT) at the University of Applied Sciences in Worms, Germany.

References

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Simo Jokinen and Jukka Suhonen. Food caching by willow and crested tits: A test of scatterhoarding models. Ecology, 76(3):892–898, 1995.

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Jernej Tonejc, Jaspreet Kaur, Adrian Karsten, and Steffen Wendzel. Visualizing BACnet data to facilitate humans in building-security decision-making. In Proc. Int. Conference Human on Aspects of Information Security, Privacy and Trust (HAS), volume 9190 of LNCS, pages 693–704. Springer, 2015.

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Steffen Wendzel, Benjamin Kahler, and Thomas Rist. Covert channels and their prevention in building automation protocols: A prototype exemplified using BACnet. In Proc. IEEE CPSCom Workshop on Security of Systems and Software Resiliency (3SL), pages 731–736. IEEE, November 2012.

Steffen Wendzel, Wojciech Mazurczyk, and Georg Haas. Don’t you touch my nuts: Information hiding in cyber physical systems. In Proc. IEEE Security & Privacy Workshops 2017. IEEE, 2017. in press.

Joanne Hwan Jie Yin, Gan May Fen, Fiza Mughal, and Vahab Iranmanesh. Internet of Things: securing data using image steganography. In Proc. Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Modelling and Simulation, pages 310–314. IEEE, 2015.

Elżbieta Zielińska, Wojciech Mazurczyk, and Krzysztof Szczypiorski. Trends in steganography. Commun. ACM, 57(3):86–95, March 2014.

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Published

2017-02-07

How to Cite

1.
Wendzel S, Mazurczyk W, Haas G. Steganography for Cyber-physical Systems. JCSANDM [Internet]. 2017 Feb. 7 [cited 2025 Feb. 15];6(2):105-26. Available from: https://journals.riverpublishers.com/index.php/JCSANDM/article/view/5211

Issue

2017: Vol 6 Iss 2

Section

Articles