Steganography using the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP)

Abstract: We present here the first work to propose different mechanisms for hiding data in the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). This is a very popular instant messaging protocol used by many messaging platforms such as Google Talk, Cisco, LiveJournal and many others. Our paper describes how to send a secret message from one XMPP client to another, without raising the suspicion of any intermediaries. The methods described primarily focus on using the underlying protocol as a means for steganography, unlike other related works that try to hide data in the content of instant messages. In doing so, we provide a more robust means of data hiding and additionally offer some preliminary analysis of its general security, in particular against entropic-based steganalysis.