Denial of Service Attack to UMTS (Radio) Networks Using Sim-Less Devices to Increase Network Efficiency

Abstract

One of the fundamental security elements in cellular networks is the authentication procedure performed by means of the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) that is required to grant access to network services and hence protect the network from unauthorized usage. Nonetheless, in this proposed work we present a new kind of denial of service (DoS) attack based on properly crafted SIM-less devices that, without any kind of authentication and by exploiting some specific features and performance bottlenecks of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) network attachment process, are potentially capable of introducing significant service degradation up to disrupting large sections of the cellular network coverage. Beyond protocol-specific vulnerabilities, the same network complexity may also hide potential performance bottlenecks in signalling protocols or control applications or components that can be exploited by several kinds of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks in order to tear down critical service subsystems or overwhelm them with large number of requests, exhausting the resources needed to ensure network operations. The knowledge of this attack can be exploited by several applications both in security and in network equipment manufacturing sectors.