Vulnerability of LTE to Hostile Interference

LTE is well on its way to becoming the primary cellular standard, due to its performance and low cost. Over the next decade we will become dependent on LTE, which is why we must ensure it is secure and available when we need it. Unfortunately, like any wireless technology, disruption through radio jamming is possible. This paper investigates the extent to which LTE is vulnerable to intentional jamming, by analyzing the components of the LTE downlink and uplink signals. The LTE physical layer consists of several physical channels and signals, most of which are vital to the operation of the link. By taking into account the density of these physical channels and signals with respect to the entire frame, as well as the modulation and coding schemes involved, we come up with a series of vulnerability metrics in the form of jammer to signal ratios. The ``weakest links'' of the LTE signals are then identified, and used to establish the overall vulnerability of LTE to hostile interference.Comment: 4 pages, see below for citation. M. Lichtman, J. Reed, M. Norton, T. Clancy, "Vulnerability of LTE to Hostile Interference'', IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP), Dec 201

Easy 4G/LTE IMSI Catchers for Non-Programmers

IMSI Catchers are tracking devices that break the privacy of the subscribers of mobile access networks, with disruptive effects to both the communication services and the trust and credibility of mobile network operators. Recently, we verified that IMSI Catcher attacks are really practical for the state-of-the-art 4G/LTE mobile systems too. Our IMSI Catcher device acquires subscription identities (IMSIs) within an area or location within a few seconds of operation and then denies access of subscribers to the commercial network. Moreover, we demonstrate that these attack devices can be easily built and operated using readily available tools and equipment, and without any programming. We describe our experiments and procedures that are based on commercially available hardware and unmodified open source software

Securing personal distributed environments

The Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) is a new concept being developed by Mobile VCE allowing future mobile users flexible access to their information and services. Unlike traditional mobile communications, the PDE user no longer needs to establish his or her personal communication link solely through one subscribing network but rather a diversity of disparate devices and access technologies whenever and wherever he or she requires. Depending on the services’ availability and coverage in the location, the PDE communication configuration could be, for instance, via a mobile radio system and a wireless ad hoc network or a digital broadcast system and a fixed telephone network. This new form of communication configuration inherently imposes newer and higher security challenges relating to identity and authorising issues especially when the number of involved entities, accessible network nodes and service providers, builds up. These also include the issue of how the subscribed service and the user’s personal information can be securely and seamlessly handed over via multiple networks, all of which can be changing dynamically. Without such security, users and operators will not be prepared to trust their information to other networks

Security Review and Study of DoS Attacks on LTE Mobile Network

The main objective of 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) is to provide a secure communication, high data rate and better communication for 4G users. LTE support all IP based data and voice with speed in order of hundreds of mega-bytes per second. Increase speed in accessing internet. Network to be attached by hackers using some attacks like spyware ,malware ,Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial-of-Service(DDoS) .This paper associated with security problem in LTE network and brief summary of DoS attack , DDoS attack and security vulnerabilities in LTE networks

Signalling Storms in 3G Mobile Networks

We review the characteristics of signalling storms that have been caused by certain common apps and recently observed in cellular networks, leading to system outages. We then develop a mathematical model of a mobile user's signalling behaviour which focuses on the potential of causing such storms, and represent it by a large Markov chain. The analysis of this model allows us to determine the key parameters of mobile user device behaviour that can lead to signalling storms. We then identify the parameter values that will lead to worst case load for the network itself in the presence of such storms. This leads to explicit results regarding the manner in which individual mobile behaviour can cause overload conditions on the network and its signalling servers, and provides insight into how this may be avoided.Comment: IEEE ICC 2014 - Communications and Information Systems Security Symposiu