Privacy-Leaking and Steganographic Threats in Wireless Connected Environments

Wireless technologies, softwarization of hardware and the increasing diffusion of IoT nodes allow to access and control industrial settings, smart environments and a variety of remote services. This leads to a wireless connected world characterized by a mixed set of technologies handling various personal and sensitive data. Therefore, security and privacy are critical requirements, which should be pursued starting from the early stages of design. Unfortunately, the complex and composite nature of modern wireless deployments enables the creation of emerging and effective threats. For instance, the traffic of IoT nodes can be inspected to infer habits or to conduct reconnaissance campaigns, whereas exchanged digital artifacts could be exploited to conceal secret information or perform exfiltration of data. In this perspective, this chapter presents and outlines new threats targeting the technological ecosystems at the basis of the so-called wireless Internet. It also proposes design choices that should be considered to engineer more secure and private wireless environments.