Channeling as A Challenge

By Milica D. Djekic

Abstract: The modern cyber systems could deal with some kinds of information leakage concerns such as source, routing, and destination data losses. Any of them can mean that the entire infrastructure is under monitoring as well as risk, so it’s important to develop some sort of inverse attack methodologies that can offer us the chance to appropriately respond to such kinds of breaches compromising our IT environment. In other words, if the proposed attack methodology means some asset is under threat we should cope with the best practices suggesting us to define the origin of those attacks. Once the source of the attack is found cyber defense teams can locate those intruders and strike back in order to protect their assets. In the practice, there are some well-known vulnerable places in the network that can be exploited, and in this effort; we will mainly talk about the risks to communication channels being part of the IT infrastructure. Also, it’s significant to explain that communication can be a wide term as there are both telecommunication and web connectivity channels. The telecommunication is basically correlated with the GSM, GPRS, and GPS infrastructure, while the internet connection corresponds with the TCP/IP channel. In this article, we will pay attention to monitoring of the web infrastructure mostly taking into account its communication parameters. So, the risk to any communication channel is practically the same and if the tapping is happening anywhere it’s important to locate who does that and why. On the other hand, that can be interesting from an investigation perspective which will be discussed further in this article.

Keywords: cybersecurity, communication, intelligence, defense, case, etc.

Introduction                                                                                                  

The measurement science has challenged the manufacturers, industry suppliers and inventors during the centuries. The modern days have brought to us so many electrical and electronic solutions that serve in taking measurements on a regular basis. Those sorts of activities can happen in the laboratories, institutes and amongst the academic community providing us an opportunity to more exactly understand the nature and its technological outcomes. At the beginning, we can try to imagine how electricity travels through the circuits and why it’s important to cope with the engineering as the key pillar in understanding the novel technical systems. With the very beginnings of electrifications the human kind wanted to figure out how those natural phenomena function and that’s why so many physicists across the globe have researched those events and tried to formulate their laws and principles. As it’s known the electrical systems have relied on the postulates of the electrostatics, electro-kinematics and electrodynamics, so far. Those branches of the electrical engineering have been well-developed, but many have believed they will continue to produce the new results as time goes on. That’s what we call the progress and from the current perspective it’s obvious why it matters investing into so. The fact is in the nowadays electrical systems the charges travel through the conductors and through such a motion they form some kind of the electrical field. The electrical filed is the vector variable dealing with the intensity and direction. On the other hand, if we talk about the measurement practice occurring in some empirical research we should take into consideration that the flow of current is not identical to the fluid stream, so that’s why it’s significant to understand that the electrical charges in the conductor do not leave their circuit going to the probe of, say, some oscilloscope. In such a case, the measuring device is under the voltage as well and it will also generate some sort of electrical filed around its transmission line. So, in that manner we can talk about transmitting and receiving fields existing around the electrical circuit and measuring probe, respectively.

In other words, the circuits deal with the emitting field, while the role of the probe is to collect or receive such sent information. The point is the emitting field will press that information into the probe’s field and on the display of the oscilloscope we will see the measuring values. In addition, in such a case we will cope with the superposition of the emitting and receiving vectors that will give some resulting value as the output. Any measuring devices are calibrated and their internal parameters are defined by the manufacturers, so if we cope with the stamp of the collected value we can figure out that there will be the ways to calculate the signal intensity and shape using the well-known mathematical equations. So, there are no charges leakage at all; there is only the interference between two electrical fields. Also, it’s interesting to mention the similar case is with the cyber technologies as there are no 0s and 1s dissipations at all, but rather leaving the information footage on the collecting field. The cyber systems can be channeled anywhere on the routing path and that can include the wirings, cablings and network devices such as routers, modems, servers and so on. Apparently, if the developer makes the code that will send the set of 1s to some location the reason for so is that electrical field dealing with the 5 V signal will collect the information from the interfering field and send them back via two-way communication to the device doing such a testing. From the practitioner’s point of view, it’s about sending the query to some point in the network and after the careful questioning the devices will be connected to each other and the signal will be transferred. In our opinion, the experts making the hardware will cope with much deeper understanding of those natural phenomena and they will be well-familiar with the field’s theory and its impacts to the ongoing technology.

In case we try to imagine that there is the charges’ dissipation it’s logical that those electric particles should change their stream and that will be the obvious wastage of the signal. The fact is the signal in the network will be transmitted flawlessly and no one will get that such a network does some tapping, so far. Next, if there is the weapon to do that channeling there must be the counter-solution giving us the chance to detect such a presence in the IT infrastructure. Obviously, it will appear that cyber breaches, account tracking and much more are the quite manageable risks and the new challenge could be the communication channeling concern. The modern hackers are not only the skillful advanced users they are also good in R&D, so it’s clear they could develop some of those technologies as well as define some of the attack methodologies. From this perspective, it’s significant to aware the cyber industry about such challenges as it would provide the adequate response to any of those cybercrime scenarios. The bad guys must track the other people and if they cope with the insufficient skill to do so, they will pay the hackers to do so instead of them. In other words, it seems that’s one more useful honeypot to the good guys who can take advantage and through the time consuming searches catch the offenders one by one. So, if we know that the source, destination and routing devices and accessories in the network can be monitored it’s clear that all we need to do is to make some kind of the trap that will give us the chance to discover who is doing the tracking and from where. In sense of any sort of cyber tracking it’s obvious that some information will be copied and re-directed to the certain location coping with some IP address. On the other hand, the entire process of copying and transferring can appear as quite different from the perspective of the hardware engineers. Anyone in the industry doing R&D will know that it’s quite trickery developing the new product and from that point of view it’s needed the deep knowledge of math and science.

Therefore, if such a crime is possible it should find its place into the Criminal Code and the investigators and forensic examiners should be trained to resolve that sort of criminality carefully investigating everything and collecting the evidence that can prove someone’s guiltiness on the court. In other words, if the communication channeling is happening and undoubtedly it’s quite feasible it exits there must be developed the entire set of counter-measures that will support us in being much safer in such a sense. Any activity in the cyberspace can leave the trace and if the tapping is not only data transfer from one location to another as the IT security professionals could see that it’s quite clear that the aim we should target is not the electrical field, but rather that two-way information exchange channel that will respond with the returning messages and definitely leave the footage in the network as the returning electrical charges will make some differences in the routing path affecting the previous state of the electricity in the conductor carrying the entire information on. Moreover, when the signal travels through the network nothing will remain the same as the electrical particles and their fields will make the differences.

Network Monitoring Systems

The purpose of the network monitoring tools is to gather data regarding web traffic and the other kinds of the network information sharing. The point is quite similar as with the laboratory experimental probes that will be connected to the piece of equipment in order to read the signal. In other words, the network monitoring system will read the traffic within some part of the network or route. Such asset can collect the network packets being the sets of 0s and 1s – apparently, transferring them to many different locations. So, if we imagine the network as some sort of the print board we can figure out that our network monitoring “probes” can access nearly any part of such an infrastructure. In the practice, the packets of the information can be cryptographically protected and on the marketplace there are some solutions that can overcome such a barrier. Basically, the network surveillance tools are capable to send the request to the targeted point in the network through one route of the two-way communication and consequently, they will get the response via another communication channel. The common tools can monitor the activity of the network devices and apparently, the entire path on. The majority of the commercial solutions can use the crypto-algorithms in order to decrypt once collected traffic. The fact is the hackers can have the both – software and hardware skill, so they will not rely on the commercial products but rather cope with their own research developing the quite scary cyber weapons. The point is those skillful guys could work under the program of some opponent government or the entire terrorist regions being the huge threat to the international security. For such a reason, it’s clear why the global collaboration in intelligence and defense sector matters and why it’s important to work hard to make the trust-based relations.

The good question being addressed to the hardware engineers is how network monitoring system works and if we make such a remark to the brilliant developer we will not get the full answer as there are still open concerns that can be explained by the micro-electronics and material science experts. In other words, some of points seeking the answer here are still beyond our current understanding, so we will try to discuss the stuffs that are fully or somewhat clear to us. The imperative is to engage so many professionals and researchers to give some feedback as well as provide some comprehensive answers. In other words, the topic is technical, but still multidisciplinary so it’s good talking about so as the entire community would be aware of. In the essence, it’s clear that the network monitoring is also about some kind of the communication streaming as the bits of information can go to one or many locations causing the troubles to everyone. It appears that makes the task to the investigators being much more difficult as the information leakage can be adjusted to go the computers that will not issue the straightforward request. In other words, it’s possible to send the request from one computer and receive the packets of data somewhere else on the web, so that’s how the clever cyber foxes will camouflage their path. The idea is to trick the authorities and make them miss to examine everything deeply for a reason they are not aware of such feasible cybercrime schemes.

Probably the best method to analyze the channeling offenses is to do that through the network monitoring software. That tool will leave the footage about its activity in the cyberspace and no matter how smart the cybercrime underworld is they will not be able to hide what they do there for real. The electricity usually goes through conductors and semi-conductors, so even the material science researcher can figure out what happened in the piece of circuit as that part could be investigated at the micro level or under the power. Also, it’s good thinking about the idea of multi-level streaming as the request for monitoring can be sent from one computer, delivered back to many of them and further it can be made the new request that will use the next ring of machines in order to cause them being the sinks to that level of channeling. Right here, we have mentioned the possible criminal schemes that can appear in the practice and in our understanding, it’s helpful to know some details about them as the response of the investigation agencies could be timely, accurate and impactful, so far. The nightmare scenario is something from so could get in the hands of transnational crime and terrorist organizations, so the consequences are obvious.

Signal Travels through Wire

The internet signal travels through the wirings mainly and if we talk about wireless base stations it’s possible observing the TCP/IP channels through such a medium. In this chapter, we will talk about the signal that goes through the conductors’ and semi-conductors’ elements of the electronic circuits. It’s well-known that the power supply of any computing unit will use the alternating current from the local electrical grid, but it will convert such energy into direct current applying some sort of the AC/DC convertors. The majority of portable devices will get the battery with them and they will cope with the DC power supply once they are on the field. On the other hand, the wireless signal access points have their range and coverage which means they can throw the signal at some distance covering the certain number of devices needing such a communication. Also, the wireless systems will emit the electromagnetic waves with the digital information being packed there, while the wire solutions cope with the electrical impulses going through some material. In addition, it’s well-known that the digital systems are the switching ones and the best way to make 0s and 1s is to periodically close and open the switches. The similar case is with the wireless internet that will also use some sort of relay to produce the digital component of the electromagnetic waves. The experts for telecommunications are well-familiar with so and they can explain how vulnerable anything traveling through the air can be for a reason someone getting the developed equipment can interfere with everything including the radio waves that are not necessarily cryptographically protected. In other words, the network monitoring tools are not suitable for the wire systems only, but they can make some impact in case of the wireless solutions.

The most common way to gather the network traffic is via the network devices. Those sorts of equipment are usually the routers, modems and hops being present in the network. On the other hand, it can appear as somewhat confusing to claim that the network monitoring tools are just wire-oriented as it is possible to collect the wireless signal from the air. That signal is well-protected with some encryption and the experience will show that the majority of such cryptography is still vulnerable to the hacker’s attacks. The trick is so similar as in the case of the wire-based system as in the case of the wireless web the cyber attack can go through the devices being capable to emit the electromagnetic waves and collect once stamped information from the local surroundings. In other words, whatever we choose as the transmitting medium being the cable or the air the impacts could be more or less the same – concerning to many of us. Indeed, it was necessary to distinguish the wire and wireless systems in this section, so some empirical researches could suggest us that the wireless systems can be detected using a wide spectrum of radio frequency searching devices. Such search can be time consuming, but as the entire telecommunications cope with the ground and air communications it’s clear that some of the local infrastructure can serve in search which literally can take a plenty of time.

In other words, if the attack methodology in case of the wireless communication is put under the investigation the good question is how those operations could be detected. The adequate answer to that question is through scanning. Apparently, anyone using any kind of communication and in this case we will talk about the wireless web will need to leave his IP address to such a network if he wants to pull out anything from that grid. So, if we need to see what someone online does we also need to be online. Therefore, it’s feasible to scan the entire range of the access point in order to determine who has used that infrastructure for some kind of cyber operations. It’s quite obvious that such a portable device has used the IP address belonging to such an access point, but it’s also possible it will get its own IP address coming from its mobile internet connectivity. The entire cyber industry still needs to learn as we will be capable to develop the solutions that can be advantaging for many and mostly for the good guys doing the investigation. To be honest, the impact of poor cyber defense is far more reaching and if we do not figure out how important is to have developed the good cyber security capacities today – tomorrow it can be too late! Through wire or wirelessly the signal will be registered in the cyberspace and for a reason to avoid the messy job we must think at least a step ahead of the threat, so far.

Collecting Network Traffic

The network traffic can be collected through the communication ports and that’s not only the case with the endpoint computers, but rather with the network devices as well. The network devices serve to manage the traffic via the grid and no matter how strong their firewall protections are there are always the ways to make a breach into such a system. The fact is the signal travels through the wire and wirelessly, so in both cases it’s significant to take into account how those points in the network can be approached. Collecting the network traffic is the challenge and it’s not only up to the bad guys how to do so, but mainly up to the cyber defense professionals who need to assure the network and the entire traffic. From a security perspective, it’s important to analyze how all those sinks of the communication channeling can be detected and the cybercrime groups getting found. The point is to prevent the cyberspace from being compromised, but it’s harder to do than to say! Further in this effort, we will mention some of the channeling hotspots being the places where the channeling works the best. Also, in this article we have talked broadly about the ways of the information transmission and it’s clear that the communication channel can be the quite wide term. In other words, the network traffic can be caught in the transmission line, local environment, air, routing devices and much more. Everything of them is the communication medium and in case of the TCP/IP communication it does not mean protecting the network from being streamed is the easy task. The old, good hacker’s methods can include some sorts of breaches either via accounts or through data and devices, so far. On the other hand, the communication channeling is the biggest challenge we have at the moment for a reason so many of the prevention techniques are not developed yet. Also, the good communication must be capable to cross all barriers including the land, air and water. So, it’s obvious how hard it was to make the global network being the web and produce it works quite reliably in any part of the world.

Further, the telecommunication services such as GSM, GPRS and GPS are well-developed at the present and some experts will predict they could find their role in the future being some kind of the support to the coming technological solutions. Especially in such a case it’s important to think about the security as about nothing in this world is absolutely reliable. Also, any communication channel is vulnerable to the attacks, so if we are too dependable on the emerging technologies that can be the huge risk to everyone on the planet. So, if the task of the communications is to cross the barriers such as land, water and air it’s logical to realize that the channeling can happen anywhere and anytime. That appears as one more open concern and indeed, it is. Unluckily to many of us, the communication we have nowadays is not strictly physical for a reason it will be deeply correlated with the cyber domain. It will exist for real and it will be highly sophisticated, but it will be our greatest weakness for a reason it will make our lives being mainly virtual. It was hard to imagine during the 20^th century we will go that far away, but still remain as Einstein would say for his time’s science “child-like” and we would add naive in front of all the threats arising today.

The fact is the global landscape has changed through the time and there was never the blessing time to all. The history will appear as quite turbulent, so the good portion of the defense industry has become interested into the technology as the driving force of the progress. To wrap up, the communications of today is quite reliable, but still sensitive to attackers. Streaming is possible in any sense and we would not be surprised if some cybercrime groups are already exploiting such vulnerabilities. What we know in this phase is that we need to detect the sinks of our information as they will provide us the best findings about the streamers we look for. The cryptography can help a bit, but not completely so there is the big need to follow the internet signal from its source unless destination in order to understand what sorts of paths it must pass on its way on. The network is about the software and hardware and it’s highly appealing to form the multidisciplinary teams that will deal with the better understanding of all perspectives of the channeling challenge. As there are the tendencies with the marketplace to cope with some trends and demands from the consumers the similar case is with the black market that can develop literally everything in order to take advantage over our weaknesses.

Encryption Challenges

The data being streamed could be encrypted and from a point of view of the cryptanalyst there can be some difficulties in converting the ciphertext into the plaintext. Any commercial and military crypto-algorithm is well-studied and the main concern in opening the message can be selecting the appropriate cryptographic key. The encryption key is selected on one of the devices in the network and it is recommended it should be delivered to the destination using the different communication line. In other words, the encrypted message is sent to one or more destinations using one channel, while the cryptographic key must go through the well-protected and secure link. In the practice, there are so many key management techniques and in case of the multi-level encryption there are several keys in the usage. From a today’s perspective, the multi-level cryptography means that the plaintext is encrypted into ciphertext and then that ciphertext is re-encrypted into the new ciphertext and so on – depends how many levels of encryption we want. At this stage, there is no perfect secrecy and by some opinions that’s something being impossible as there are the obvious limitations of the ongoing digital systems. The cryptographs from the World War 2 have predicted the perfect secrecy, but nowadays we can discuss only the weak and strong encryption, so far. Basically, it’s hard to design the strong encryption system and such a project needs the participation of the multidisciplinary team of the experts. As it is known the cryptography can go through software or hardware and sometimes the combination of those two solutions. The hardware crypto-system appears as the common USB stick that can be connected to the computer and used to transmit the message being transformed applying some encryption rule. On the other hand, the software encryption can rely even on the open-source applications and it can be disabled conducting the typical endpoint cyber attack. In the world of the APTs, it’s clear that so many hardware encryption solutions could be targeted and become malfunctioned for a reason someone will just burn or damage that asset. On the other hand, the computers and devices working with the cryptography must be well-assured and if we know that our opponents will spend months and months searching the cyberspace looking for us it’s definitely clear that some of such searches will give the positive results to them. Also, we will do the same and it’s only the matter of time who will find whom the first.

In its essential meaning, the encryption is the practice of transforming the plaintext into the ciphertext. The cryptography has existed through the history and in this digital time, it’s only about how the sets of 0s and 1s will be differently re-arranged, so far. For such a purpose, we will use the certain group of the rules supporting us to encrypt and lately decrypt such information. In the current world, it’s possible encrypting not only the entire communication channels, but mainly the files, folders and devices. That’s something being commercially available and it’s not the privilege of the defense sector only. So, if some file is encrypted so far it’s possible sending it to one or many locations using, say, the e-mail account, while the key for decrypting can be transferred applying the webpage. Those techniques are still quite expensive and there are gaining the great popularity amongst civilians particularly in the business and industry as so many business players want to protect their projects, intellectual property and professional secrets – so that’s why they use cryptography in order to take advantage on the marketplace. Also, there are a lot of competitors that will use the business espionage in order to steal the sensitive information from their competitors and in such a manner they are ready to fight so mercilessly in order to obtain the huge profit.

To recapitulate this chapter, the encryption is the big deal even today. As we have suggested before anything going through the wire or wirelessly can be channeled and the challenge is how to open those information being grabbed on the land, water or in the air. Breaking the cryptography seeks time and effort and that’s why many doing so could deal with the serious obstacles. In other words, if any communication can be streamed the good question is if the strong encryption can save our data from being readable to our opponent. The answer is it’s worth making such an attempt.

Packets of Information

In the digital systems, the packet of the information is a series of the bits that cope with their length, capacity and interpretation depending where they are positioned. In the practice, those pieces of data can be encrypted or they can go through the ciphered channel. The packets of the information are sent from their origin and they must be received at their destination fully or in other words, they are corrupted and the local IT system can see that as the flaw in the communication. So, those packets of data are the real blood in the organism being correlated with the communications, so far. Apparently, if our communication is the blood systems its packets are the building blocks forming such an entity. On the other hand, it’s logical that the packets are not just disoriented parts of the information as they will precisely know where to go and which message to carry on. Basically, those smart agents can deal with the payload being the message that should be transferred and with the routing information that can provide some sort of navigation through the channel by itself. In the practice, so many network monitoring tools can take those packets from their route and apply some sort of the decryption in order to recognize their content. The fact is the skillful network administrators and analysts can use those tools, but the trouble is when such a solution comes into the hands of the bad actors. The developers and software engineers are far more familiar with the packets concept and we believe there are the heaps of useful open-source intelligence on the web that can support anyone’s effort to study more about such a theory, so far. In other words, our aim in this case is to provide the description of that paradigm in so simple manner, but we also want to encourage the experts from many fields to take part into such a research as the channeling is the challenge on its own. The issue is the entire packets of the information can be streamed from the communication line as the packets are the building tissue of any communication system being digital by its nature. In other words, the TCP/IP communication is not feasible without the packets of the information and in the practice; some kind of the cryptographic protection must be used. No matter how well we are protected the cyber criminals can go a step beyond. Also, if we talk about the war conditions it’s clear that the armies of some countries could use the professional defense equipment, so they are far more dangerous than the adolescents with the acnes. In addition, the guys serving in some military unit can deal with the coding skill and they cope with much more sophisticated tools than the guys from the criminal environment. Therefore, the Black Hats should not be underestimated for a reason they will be that hidden part of the ice berg that will be deeply below the surface working hard day by day and never stopping to launch their new and scary solutions to the surface. In other words, they are so dangerous machinery that will put a lot of effort to produce so serious weapons. From their point of view, it’s a piece of cake dealing with some packets and doing some channeling as well as message opening on some device. We cannot miss to say that the cybercrime underworld is well-familiar with the both – software and hardware engineering and as they can make a plenty of malware every single day they must be capable to stream the communication channel and make that content being readable to them.

As we already said, the packets of information will cope with two main parameters telling them where to go and what to carry on. Those parameters are the routing information and the payload, respectively. The most sensitive part of any packet is the payload as it keeps the secret which messages should be transmitted. On their way through the packets of the information can pass so long distances and use the capacities of so many servers being the part of that routing path. Sometimes the paths could be so busy and in such a case the packet will be directed depending on availability of the network route. In addition, in this effort we have dealt with the protocols as the technical solution, so it’s important to explain that better. The protocols are those parts of the communication network that will allow data transfer only if their communication is accurate. In other words, they will exchange the set of questions and answers and if everything works flawlessly the communication channel will be open and the packets of the information will make a transfer through that transmission line. This is not only the attribute of computing systems, but rather the characteristics of the entire telecommunication as both solutions use the electricity to operate on.

Essences of Streaming

The channeling can happen anywhere and anytime on the data transmission line either it’s about the information exchange medium or the routing devices. The routing devices are sometimes called the hops and in case of the link cryptography those spots can be extremely sensitive to the cyber attacks as they need to decrypt the packet of the information in order to see where to send it the next and then re-encrypt so in order to maintain that communication being confidential. In other words, they will cope with so obvious weaknesses and if such a device is the place of decryption that’s how we can see the problem. The fact is those hops are the concentrators of the plaintext information and anyone being connected to that gadget can steal the plaintext messages. Also, if we think about the routing information the entire path will be more than obvious. In the coming section, we will talk about the channeling hotspots and from a security point of view it seems that those hops are the real hotspots. The main drawback here is the streamers can offer their service to much more dangerous actors such as the terrorists and such an irresponsible behavior can put under the risk the lives of so many innocent people. The cybercrime underworld will do that for profit and they are not ethical at all about choosing to whom to serve as well as what can happen as the outcome of their activities. The channeling of the communication is the modern nightmare as it can happen anytime and anywhere, so even if there is some trace being left in the cyberspace it’s needed to make the heaps of searches in order to get any track. The intelligence and defense teams working on such tasks literally need a lot of time and above all they need to cope with the outstanding skill in order to overcome all the obstacles being on their road on. It’s so important why it is so appealing talking about such things and why we need to run a plenty of research projects that will direct the industry to get that direction. In addition, there is the huge need for the skillful researchers in the defense sector as everyone would be well-updated about the new trends and tendencies in the world. Basically, the information can leak through the entire path and such a risk is hard to be managed. Apparently, we can lose data somewhere and there can pass a lot of time before we figure out who does that and from where. It is believed that the criminals and terrorists are only the advanced users of the emerging technologies, but from another perspective there is the entire black market that can develop so very dangerous solutions and sell them to the bad guys for the competitive profit. So, the bad guys still stay the advanced end users, while the cyber criminals are the lords of the entire black market industry. Recently, some international law enforcement agencies have reported that they have arrested the cybercrime groups doing the TV channel streaming and offering such contents on their entertainment platform. This information gives the hope as we are just aware that the modern policing and intelligence can detect, prevent and resolve such criminal justice cases. In other words, being through the web or the other communication and telecommunication channels the streaming is happening so frequently.

To explain this better, with the communication channeling it’s not needed any longer to do some account tracking as there is an opportunity to catch that correspondence on its way on. In other words, if the President of the United States sends his e-mail to someone in his administration it is not needed to re-direct the copies of those contents to the threat’s account simply doing the account tracking which means the message will be tracked in the active, storage or backup status from some server especially if there is the chance to make a breach into the communication channel and re-direct the copy of that e-message directly from its way through. The account tracking can appear as quite traceable at this moment, but the channeling still remains the challenge to the modern days.

Moreover, once sent message can be caught in the air if the user relies on the wireless internet. On the other hand, there is the strong need for the research and investigation in this area as the arising threat could be put under the control. In other words, the channeling should become the manageable risk as it can serve as the trap to the bad guys that want to obtain everything in the illegal fashion, but we can talk about so once we develop the technology that will cope with the enough capacity and speed in order to detect and locate such a threat. Those days are not that far away!

Channeling Hotspots

The channeling hotspots are those points in the network where the risk of the data leakage is the most critical. In the practice, that is happening in the hops being the parts of the infrastructure where the traffic can be decrypted. Also, the most sensitive portions of the web are the communications mediums or the places where the signal is transmitted through. In our opinion, there is the great need for the better understanding how the entire grid works as the members of the defense community could gain the skill in working on such cases. On the other hand, the engineering community that has developed the internet will deal with much deeper understanding how it goes and in our experience those findings should be transferred to the security rings. The most dangerous stuff here is there could be some data leakage, but we will not be aware of so. At the moment, there are the millions of the network monitoring tools being active in the cyberspace and if we want to figure out who is observing the web we need to cope with some kind of inverse techniques that will give us the chance to detect those locations and persons. So, it’s all about the deep search and as we know it can be too time consuming. On the other hand, there are no silver bullets in the world and what is needed is to invest a lot of effort in order to resolve some situation. The internet is the complex and global grid and searching the web is like a doing the never ending job. Our enemies could be anywhere and even to gain some track can take so much time. In other words, the entire web infrastructure could be assumed as one huge communication channel and we will never know from where the information can leak out. In the emerging time of threats it’s obvious that the both – good and bad guys are dependable on the cyber technologies and as the IT asset is the part of the nation’s critical infrastructure it’s clear why it matters paying such a big attention to so. Also, the hops as the hotspots are the most obvious weaknesses in the communication infrastructure as they can offer the plaintext information on their way through. In addition, if someone is catching the wireless signal in the air the reason for so could be that hacker has the capacities to decrypt once transmitted traffic. In the practice, there are so many frequent places with the wireless access points that due to the interference can offer some stage of the coverage. From a different point of view, if we talk about the physical components of the cyberspace such as hardware, wirings, caballing and the network devices it’s logical that those parts of the assets could be attacked as well as they carry the web traffic, too. Basically, the channeling hotspots are diverse and it’s needed to ask for an opinion from the expert in the field as that guy is capable to at least partially remove our doubts. There are no over-smart individuals; there are only the technically relevant teams that can provide the quite clear and simple explanations to any our question. In other words, as the phishing is the ongoing challenge to many and some companies would want to develop the software that can recognize the bad link from the good one – for a reason that’s needed to reduce the cost of so expansive training that will not be sufficient to offer the appropriate skill to the people, so the employer will always be unconfident about what can happen the next. From that perspective, it’s clear why the business players will compete to assure the entire web and provide the solution that will resolve the problems automatically and in the less timely manner.

On the other hand, if we analyze the network traffic and define the first hand hotspots our journey could begin there with the well-researched staring points that can lead us to the deeper understanding of the issue by its essence. Therefore, it’s needed to start from somewhere and if we try to detect what is happening with the current hotspots determining them as overwhelmed with the external sinks we will be on the good way on to push our industry actors working on the better security of the entire global grid. In other words, any action seeks reaction, so that’s why we must be confident that everything we need is with the footage in the cyberspace and if we follow that track we can obtain so many helpful findings to the entire criminal justice investigation. Finally, it will appear that this effort is the quite criminology-oriented one and that’s the fact as the novel technological challenges bring with them the new offenses and criminal schemes seeking from us the better dedication and commitment in any task being assigned to anyone of us. The point is the hackers of today can look like the curious kids getting on nerves to many serious people, but they are not such a severe concern as their bosses are.

Discussion & Conclusions

The communication channeling with the web resources is feasible and it is already happening across the globe. The new time’s threats must adapt if they want to survive especially in we take into account how merciless and harsh they are about each other as well as how chronically they are in the state of readiness in terms of the security community activities. The main imperative to the current defense agencies is to detect the sinks that will pull out the communication happening somewhere on the web. As we said, nothing can be resolved over night and in the practice it takes time to tackle anything. The role of this effort is to aware the criminal investigation rings about the ongoing concern that should also be taken into consideration in combating the transnational organized crime and terrorism as well. In other words, if we are not aware about the threat we can believe it does not exist in our community or wider at all. On the other hand, if we encourage the people to talk about what they believe in we can get the real feedback that can make us to take some steps on. First, it’s needed to confirm something as channeling is possible and if that is confirmed in some laboratory or the base through giving the chance to the good guys to play with the equipment and try to prove the data leakage they will undoubtedly gain confidence about how it works. In other words, if we prove the streaming in some experimental conditions we will be in a position to ask the forensic experts to collect the evidence and in such a manner we will have the entire experimental case being resolved. The ultimate response should come from the cyber industry and that must happen in the collaboration with the security community, so far.

About The Author                

Milica D. Djekic is an Independent Researcher from Subotica, the Republic of Serbia. She received her engineering background from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade. She writes for some domestic and overseas presses and she is also the author of the book “The Internet of Things: Concept, Applications and Security” being published in 2017 with the Lambert Academic Publishing. Milica is also a speaker with the BrightTALK expert’s channel. She is the member of an ASIS International since 2017 and contributor to the Australian Cyber Security Magazine since 2018. Milica’s research efforts are recognized with Computer Emergency Response Team for the European Union (CERT-EU), Censys Press, BU-CERT UK and EASA European Centre for Cybersecurity in Aviation (ECCSA). Her fields of interests are cyber defense, technology and business. Milica is a person with disability.