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International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Systems

SecureComm 2022: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks pp 150–169Cite as

A Cross-layer Plausibly Deniable Encryption System for Mobile Devices

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Part of the Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering book series (LNICST,volume 462)

Abstract

Mobile computing devices have been used to store and process sensitive or even mission critical data. To protect sensitive data in mobile devices, encryption is usually incorporated into major mobile operating systems. However, traditional encryption can not defend against coercive attacks in which victims are forced to disclose the key used to decrypt the sensitive data. To combat the coercive attackers, plausibly deniable encryption (PDE) has been introduced which can allow the victims to deny the existence of the sensitive data. However, the existing PDE systems designed for mobile devices are either insecure (i.e., suffering from deniability compromises) or impractical (i.e., unable to be compatible with the storage architecture of mainstream mobile devices, not lightweight, or not user-oriented).

In this work, we design CrossPDE, the first cross-layer mobile PDE system which is secure, being compatible with the storage architecture of mainstream mobile devices, lightweight as well as user-oriented. Our key idea is to intercept major layers of a mobile storage system, including the file system layer (preventing loss of hidden sensitive data and enabling users to use the hidden mode), the block layer (taking care of expensive encryption and decryption), and the flash translation layer (eliminating traces caused by the hidden sensitive data). Experimental evaluation on our real-world prototype shows that CrossPDE can ensure deniability with a modest decrease in throughput.

Keywords

  • PDE
  • Mobile devices
  • Coercive attacks
  • Confidentiality
  • Cross-layer
  • Flash memory

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Fig. 1.
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Fig. 3.

Notes

  1. 1.

    Data stored at the beginning of the block layer are mapped to those blocks at the beginning of the flash memory, as the system usually fills randomness sequentially from the beginning of the disk, and the FTL uses a log-structured writing strategy.

  2. 2.

    Those blocks which are 1) reserved for the hidden mode, and 2) entirely or partially filled with actual randomness, can be allocated.

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Acknowledgments.

This work was supported by US National Science Foundation under grant number 1928349-CNS, 1928331-CNS, 1938130-CNS, and 2043022-DGE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Michigan Technological University, Michigan, USA

    Niusen Chen & Bo Chen

  2. Department of Computer Science, Wayne State University, Michigan, USA

    Weisong Shi

Authors
  1. Niusen Chen
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  2. Bo Chen
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  3. Weisong Shi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bo Chen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Fengjun Li

  2. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Kaitai Liang

  3. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Zhiqiang Lin

  4. Norwegian University of Science and Tech, Gjøvik, Norway

    Sokratis K. Katsikas

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Chen, N., Chen, B., Shi, W. (2023). A Cross-layer Plausibly Deniable Encryption System for Mobile Devices. In: Li, F., Liang, K., Lin, Z., Katsikas, S.K. (eds) Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. SecureComm 2022. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 462. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25538-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25538-0_9

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