Cybersecurity Solutions in Peer-to-Peer Instant Messaging

A BSc 4th-semester project that investigates security vulnerabilities in peer-to-peer (P2P) instant messaging and produces a prototype demonstrating practical defenses. The project implements a P2P messaging prototype and evaluates a set of cybersecurity measures to answer the research question below.

Which security measures can be applied to secure a peer-to-peer communication platform?

Features

• A minimal P2P instant messaging prototype (peer discovery, direct messaging).
• Implemented security measures:
  • End-to-end encryption using ECDH (SECP256R1) and AES-GCM
  • Code injection prevention using subprocesses and sanitization
  • DDos/Dos discovery and subsequent rate limiting
  • Wi-Fi Jamming considerations (transport layer)
• Peer discovery via Tailscale device list (tailscale status --json) to bootstrap secure P2P connections.

Technologies

• Language: Python 3.13
• Libraries: cryptography
• Networking: Tailscale (VPN used for NAT traversal)
• Tested on: Windows, macOS, Linux

Conclusion

The system serves as an initial starting point for projects where the emphasis lies in other areas than security or core instant messaging functionality.