Finding covert channels in protocols with message sequence charts: The case of RMTP2

Abstract

Covert channels are illegal information flows in systems. Recent research has shown how to detect covert channels in scenario descriptions. This paper recalls these results, and proposes a case study illustrating how scenarios can be used to detect illegal information flows from a scenario description of a protocol. Once a covert information flow is discovered, its bandwidth is computed using the (max, +) algebra. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.