The Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the latest mobile standard being implemented globally to provide connectivity and access to advanced services for personal mobile devices. Moreover, LTE networks are considered to be one of the main pillars for the deployment of Machine to Machine (M2M) communication systems and the spread of the Internet of Things (IoT). As an enabler for advanced communications services with a subscription count in the billions, security is of capital importance in LTE. Although legacy GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks are known for being insecure and vulnerable to rogue base stations, LTE is assumed to guarantee confidentiality and strong authentication. However, LTE networks are vulnerable to security threats that tamper availability, privacy and authentication. This manuscript, which summarizes and expands the results presented by the author at ShmooCon 2016 jover2016lte , investigates the insecurity rationale behind LTE protocol exploits and LTE rogue base stations based on the analysis of real LTE radio link captures from the production network. Implementation results are discussed from the actual deployment of LTE rogue base stations, IMSI catchers and exploits that can potentially block a mobile device. A previously unknown technique to potentially track the location of mobile devices as they move from cell to cell is also discussed, with mitigations being proposed.
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. Mobile communication is an essential part of our daily lives. Therefore, it needs to be secure and reliable. In this paper, we study the security of feature phones, the most common type of mobile phone in the world. We built a framework to analyze the security of SMS clients of feature phones. The framework is based on a small GSM base station, which is readily available on the market. Through our analysis we discovered vulnerabilities in the feature phone platforms of all major manufacturers. Using these vulnerabilities we designed attacks against end-users as well as mobile operators. The threat is serious since the attacks can be used to prohibit communication on a large scale and can be carried out from anywhere in the world. Through further analysis we determined that such attacks are amplified by certain configurations of the mobile network. We conclude our research by providing a set of countermeasures. Mobile communication systems now constitute an essential part of life throughout the world. Fourth generation "Long Term Evolution" (LTE) mobile communication networks are being deployed. The LTE suite of specifications is considered to be significantly better than its predecessors not only in terms of functionality but also with respect to security and privacy for subscribers. We carefully analyzed LTE access network protocol specifications and uncovered several vulnerabilities. Using commercial LTE mobile devices in real LTE networks, we demonstrate inexpensive, and practical attacks exploiting these vulnerabilities. Our first class of attacks consists of three different ways of making an LTE device leak its location: A semi-passive attacker can locate an LTE device within a 2 sq.km area within a city whereas an active attacker can precisely locate an LTE device using GPS co-ordinates or trilateration via cell-tower signal strength information. Our second class of attacks can persistently deny some or all services to a target LTE device. To the best of our knowledge, our work constitutes the first publicly reported practical attacks against LTE access network protocols. We present several countermeasures to resist our specific attacks. We also discuss possible trade-offs that may explain why these vulnerabilities exist and recommend that safety margins introduced into future specifications to address such trade-offs should incorporate greater agility to accommodate subsequent changes in the trade-off equilibrium. LTE is universally recognized as the world-wide standard for next-generation mobile broadband services. Operating LTE in military spectrum has recently been proposed for a variety of use cases. First, due to the lack of available commercial spectrum, commercial operators are seeking to leverage underutilized military bands to offer improved commercial service. Second, given the ability for LTE to operate at high data rates in multipath environments, the technology could provide the military with more resilient communications in tactical environments. However, these proposed use cases for LTE are non-standard and certain military requirements cannot be immediately supported within the scope of the 3GPP standards. Emerging features within LTE-Advanced provide the initial building blocks for supporting LTE operations in heterogeneous environments that may include hostile interferers. LTE operation in military bands may be possible through the use of distributed spectrum sensing, spectrum allocation databases, carrier aggregation with non-military bands, and real-time radio resource management to cope with interference. 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.