On Covert Channels Using QUIC Protocol Headers

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Presented at ShmooCon 2025 by

This presentation explores a covert communication channel leveraging high-entropy fields in the QUIC protocol headers. With fields like connection IDs and address validation tokens, QUIC provides an ideal platform for creating channels that evade detection while conforming to protocol entropy requirements. By implementing encryption techniques and leveraging the aioquic library, this work demonstrates covert communication feasibility and discusses potential detection and mitigation strategies. This research provides critical insights into protocol exploitation by leveraging high entropy fields.