Abstract: The present invention discloses a method for auditing and controlling overt and covert communication traffic in a communication system. The present invention identifies and uses a few parameters to characterize system communication traffic: the volume (V), the frequency (F), the order (O), the (extrinsic) nature (N) of communication between a given pair of nodes and the length (L) (or duration) of transmission. Using one or a combination of the parameters V, F, O, N, L, the invention determines "baseline" system conditions, and audit the behavior and operations of overt and covert communication activity to detect "out-of-baseline" traffic patterns. To further prevent covert channel communications, the present invention introduces an adaptive transmission scheduling policy and a channel handling policy based upon a channel auditing mechanism.