Threats and Challenges to Global Systems for Mobiles Security

College of Engineering and Computer Science, Abu Dhabi University P.O Box 59911, Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates Mr Umar Iqbal omar.iqbal@live.com Mr Hassan Sadi Supervisor: Dr Modafar Ati ( modafar.ati@adu.ac.ae )

Introduction Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) was designed with a moderate level of security. Mobile wireless networks are more vulnerable to unauthorized access and eavesdropping when compared with the traditional fixed wired networks due to the mobility of users, the transmission of signals through open-air and the requirement of low power consumption by a mobile user. This poster focuses on current GSM security model. It presents the terminology, security schemes and threats. Flaws and weaknesses of GSM security algorithms are unavoidable. GSM Network Structure GSM network is composed of several functional entities. GSM network can be divided into three main parts. . The first part is the Mobile Station (MS, or Base Station BS) which is carried by the subscriber. The second part is the Base Station Subsystem (BSS) which controls the radio link with the Mobile Station. The third part is the Network Subsystem, the main part of which is the Mobile services Switching Center (MSC), performs the switching of calls between the mobile and other fixed or mobile network users, as well as management of mobile services, such as authentication.

-GSM Security Model GSM security is to safeguard the users of GSM.GSM use various authentication and encryption techniques such as A5/1 and A5/2 to insure legitimacy and privacy of users.A3 and A8 are one-way hash algorithms used for authentication and session key generation respectively.

Authentication of the Subscribers, purpose of authentication feature is to protect GSM subscribers by denying the possibility for intruders that impersonate authorized users. Data encryption scheme:-

Authentication Algorithms, It includes algorithms A3, A5 and A8.MS Authentication Algorithm A3, A3 algorithm gets the RAND from the MSC and the secret key Ki from the SIM as input and generates a 32-bit output, which is the SRES response. RAND and the Ki secret are 128 bits long.COMP128 is the reference algorithm for the tasks pointed out by the GSM Consortium. Encryption Key Generation Algorithm-A8, A8 algorithm is the session key Kc generation algorithm in the GSM security.COMP128 is used for both the A3 and A8 algorithms in most GSM networks. Stream-Encryption Algorithm A5, is algorithm that is used to encrypt over theair transmissions. A5/0 (unencrypted) and use of the A5/1 algorithm or the A5/2 algorithm to secure the data.

Threats and Attacks GSM standard was designed to be a secure mobile phone system with strong subscriber authentication and over-the-air transmission encryption. Algorithms were developed in secrecy and were never published. GSM standard the security model is not all that good.

One should not send anything confidential over a GSM network without additional encryption if the data is supposed to stay confidential. Attacker makes use of the available information for GSM system like; power consumption, electromagnetic radiation, timing and errors. Several researchers lunched successful attacks against GSM security model. Brute-Force Attack against A5, Time complexity of the bruteforce attack is 254. Brookson conducted detailed calculation and analysis and he proved that brute-force attack can crack A5 in approximately 900,000 seconds (250 hours) using 600Mhz clock processor. T 1/C = r/C , r = TC r = 9x105. 6x102= 54x107 T = 54x107 / 18 x 102 = 3x105 seconds 83.4 hours Divide-and-Conquer Attack against A5, divide-and-conquer attack manages to reduce the complexity from 254 of the brute-force attack to 245.Based on a known-plaintext attack. Attacker needs to know 64 successive key stream bits that can be retrieved if the attacker knows some cipher text and the corresponding plain text. Accessing the Signaling Network, Transmissions are encrypted only between the MS and the BTS. Attacker can access the operator's signaling network including the actual phone call as well as the RAND, SRES and Kc. Signaling network used in the operator's GSM network is completely insecure if the attacker gains direct access to it. -Conclusion

GSM security model and algorithms were developed in secrecy and were never published for export reasons. Eventually some of the algorithms and specifications have leaked out. The algorithms have been studied since then and critical errors have been found. Thus, after a closer look at the GSM standards, one can perceive that the security model is not as consumers believe. In telecommunications security field, openness is critical to good design. Code making is so hard to get right the first time that it is crucial to have others double-check one's ideas. Instead, the GSM design committee kept most of security specifications secret. Security by obscurity, which means that all of the algorithms used are not available to the public. Most security analysts believe any system that is not subject to the scrutiny of the worlds best minds cant be as secure. One should not send anything confidential over a GSM network without additional encryption if the data is supposed to stay confidential. All communication between the Mobile Station and the Base Transceiver Station are encrypted. But all communications and signaling is generally transmitted in plain text in the fixed network. This security gap may be filled with an encryption program. Lack of user visibility of security mechanisms - the user is not aware how secure the data really is. References:
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