Cyber security - how to predict and protect against attacks?

The study of new techniques for hiding information in communication networks in order to predict actions by attackers and propose innovative methods of detecting these threats was the subject of a research project based on Italian-Polish cooperation between the National Research Centre in Genoa (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - CNR) - coordinated by Dr Luca Caviglione in collaboration with Dr Wojciech Mazurczyk of the Warsaw University of Technology.

The security research community has noted that cyber attacks are becoming increasingly difficult to detect, and that many threats have 'wandered' undisturbed for years. A major ingredient of this “success” is the adoption of information hiding techniques. Among the various ideas used by attackers, the most important are steganography and network covert channels. In essence, they allow to hide information in plain sight by subtly modifying the characteristics of digital objects like images, audio, video, or network traffic. Hence, attackers can stealthily orchestrate threats, exfiltrate sensitive data, or drop malicious payloads by circumventing classical security tools (e.g., firewalls). Therefore, understanding how information hiding techniques are used by cybercriminals as well as foreseeing possible offensive trends are essential to build effective and efficient countermeasures.

The outcome of the joint research activity is documented via several scientific publications mainly in the field of information hiding applied to network traffic and the mitigation of network covert channels.

It is worth noting that the cooperation of researchers is at the same time a key element in building Polish-Italian partnership and friendship.