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. 2021 Jun 13;21(12):4078.
doi: 10.3390/s21124078.

Steganographic Analysis of Blockchains

Alexandre Augusto Giron  1   2 , Jean Everson Martina  2 , Ricardo Custódio  2
Affiliations

Steganographic Analysis of Blockchains

Alexandre Augusto Giron et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Steganography is one of the ways to hide data between parties. Its use can be worrisome, e.g., to hide illegal communications. Researchers found that public blockchains can be an attractive place to hide communications; however, there is not much evidence of actual use in blockchains. Besides, previous work showed a lack of steganalysis methods for blockchains. In this context, we present a steganalysis approach for blockchains, evaluating it in Bitcoin and Ethereum, both popular cryptocurrencies. The main objective is to answer if one can find steganography in real case scenarios, focusing on LSB of addresses and nonces. Our sequential analysis included 253 GiB and 107 GiB of bitcoin and ethereum, respectively. We also analyzed up to 98 million bitcoin clusters. We found that bitcoin clusters could carry up to 360 KiB of hidden data if used for such a purpose. We have not found any concrete evidence of hidden data in the blockchains. The sequential analysis may not capture the perspective of the users of the blockchain network. In this case, we recommend clustering analysis, but it depends on the clustering method's accuracy. Steganalysis is an essential aspect of blockchain security.

Keywords: bitcoin; blockchain; ethereum; steganalysis; steganography.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A classification of the blockchain steganography approaches in the literature.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Steganalysis approach proposed for blockchains, instantiated with Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of nonces of bitcoin (left) and ethereum (right) from the first chunk of parsed blockchain data. AM is the Arithmetic Mean of each nonce.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of LSBytes of nonces of bitcoin (left) and ethereum (right), considering the first and the last chunk of parsed blockchain data.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of LSBytes of nonces of bitcoin (left) and ethereum (right), considering the first and the last chunk of parsed blockchain data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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