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Let me answer that for you: exploiting broadcast information in cellular networks

Published: 14 August 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Mobile telecommunication has become an important part of our daily lives. Yet, industry standards such as GSM often exclude scenarios with active attackers. Devices participating in communication are seen as trusted and non-malicious. By implementing our own baseband firmware based on OsmocomBB, we violate this trust and are able to evaluate the impact of a rogue device with regard to the usage of broadcast information. Through our analysis we show two new attacks based on the paging procedure used in cellular networks. We demonstrate that for at least GSM, it is feasible to hijack the transmission of mobile terminated services such as calls, perform targeted denial of service attacks against single subscribers and as well against large geographical regions within a metropolitan area.

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  • (2019)Insecure connection bootstrapping in cellular networksProceedings of the 12th Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks10.1145/3317549.3323402(1-11)Online publication date: 15-May-2019
  • (2018)A Formal Analysis of 5G AuthenticationProceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3243734.3243846(1383-1396)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2018
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  1. Let me answer that for you: exploiting broadcast information in cellular networks

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    Published In

    cover image Guide Proceedings
    SEC'13: Proceedings of the 22nd USENIX conference on Security
    August 2013
    702 pages
    ISBN:9781931971034
    • Program Chair:
    • Sam King

    Sponsors

    • Akamai: Akamai
    • Google Inc.
    • IBMR: IBM Research
    • NSF
    • Microsoft Reasearch: Microsoft Reasearch

    Publisher

    USENIX Association

    United States

    Publication History

    Published: 14 August 2013

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    View all
    • (2019)Power-Positive NetworkingACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/331768615:3(1-25)Online publication date: 17-May-2019
    • (2019)Insecure connection bootstrapping in cellular networksProceedings of the 12th Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks10.1145/3317549.3323402(1-11)Online publication date: 15-May-2019
    • (2018)A Formal Analysis of 5G AuthenticationProceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3243734.3243846(1383-1396)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2018
    • (2017)Power-positive networking using wireless chargingProceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks10.1145/3098243.3098265(52-57)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2017
    • (2015)Breaking and Fixing VoLTEProceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/2810103.2813718(328-339)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2015
    • (2014)IMSI-catch me if you canProceedings of the 30th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference10.1145/2664243.2664272(246-255)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2014
    • (2014)Vulnerability and Protection of Channel State Information in Multiuser MIMO NetworksProceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/2660267.2660272(775-786)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2014

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