International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication

The Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication (한국인터넷방송통신학회)
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Applying the Nash Equilibrium to Constructing Covert Channel in IoT

  • Ho, Jun-Won (Department of Information Security, Seoul Women's University)
  • Received : 2021.01.13
  • Accepted : 2021.01.24
  • Published : 2021.02.28
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Abstract

Although many different types of covert channels have been suggested in the literature, there are little work in directly applying game theory to building up covert channel. This is because researchers have mainly focused on tailoring game theory for covert channel analysis, identification, and covert channel problem solving. Unlike typical adaptation of game theory to covert channel, we show that game theory can be utilized to establish a new type of covert channel in IoT devices. More specifically, we propose a covert channel that can be constructed by utilizing the Nash Equilibrium with sensor data collected from IoT devices. For covert channel construction, we set random seed to the value of sensor data and make payoff from random number created by running pseudo random number generator with the configured random seed. We generate I × J (I ≥ 2, J ≥ 2) matrix game with these generated payoffs and attempt to obtain the Nash Equilibrium. Covert channel construction method is distinctly determined in accordance with whether or not to acquire the Nash Equilibrium.

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