Open Access

ARTICLE

Cost and Efficiency Analysis of Steganography in the IEEE 802.11ah IoT Protocol

by Akram A. Almohammedi^1,2,*, Vladimir Shepelev¹, Sam Darshi³, Mohammed Balfaqih⁴, Fayad Ghawbar⁵

1 Automobile Transportation Department, South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk, 454080, Russia
2 Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department Karabük University, Karabük, 78050, Turkey
3 Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Punjab, 140001, India
4 Department of Computer and Network Engineering, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, 23218, Saudi Arabia
5 Faculty of Engineering Technology, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Pagoh Campus, 86400, Malaysia

* Corresponding Author: Akram A. Almohammedi. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2022, 72(2), 3929-3943. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2022.026307

Received 21 December 2021; Accepted 22 February 2022; Issue published 29 March 2022

Abstract

The widespread use of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications has enormously increased the danger level of data leakage and theft in IoT as data transmission occurs through a public channel. As a result, the security of the IoT has become a serious challenge in the field of information security. Steganography on the network is a critical tool for preventing the leakage of private information and enabling secure and encrypted communication. The primary purpose of steganography is to conceal sensitive information in any form of media such as audio, video, text, or photos, and securely transfer it through wireless networks. In this paper, we analyse the performance characteristics of one of the steganography techniques called Hidden Communication System for Corrupted Networks (HCCNETs) for hiding sensitive data. This performance analysis includes the efficiency and the cost of the system in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), specifically in the IEEE 802.11ah IoT protocol. The analysis is mainly based on a two-dimensional Markov chain model in the presence of an error channel. Additionally, the model considers packet arrival rate, back-off timer freezing, back-off stages, and short retry limit to ensure compliance with IEEE 802.11ah requirements. It stresses the importance of taking these elements into consideration while modeling the efficiency and cost of the steganographic channel system. These parameters often result in a high precise channel access estimation, a more accurate and efficient accuracy measurements system, efficient channel utilisation, avoidance of throughput saturation overestimation, and ensuring that no packet is served endlessly. Evaluated results demonstrate that HCCNETs is an effective approach at low cost.

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Keywords

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