Covert Channels - Here to Stay

Abstract

We discuss the difficulties of satisfying high-assurance system requirements without sacrificing system capabilities. To alleviate this problem, we show how trade-offs can be made to reduce the threat of covert channels. We also clarify certain concepts in the theory of covert channels. Traditionally, a covert channel's vulnerability was measured by the capacity. We show why a capacity analysis alone is not sufficient to evaluate the vulnerability and introduce a new metric referred to as the "small message criterion".

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 07, 1994
Accession Number
ADA465048

Entities

People

  • Ira S. Moskowitz
  • Myong H. Kang

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Alphabets
  • Bandwidth
  • Coding
  • Communication Channels
  • Computer Programming
  • Decoding
  • Information Systems
  • Information Theory
  • Military Research
  • Probability
  • Probability Distributions
  • Random Variables
  • Reliability
  • Standards
  • Symbols
  • Transmitters
  • Trojan Horse

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Radio communications and signal processing.
  • Systems Analysis and Design