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“Currently, operators are placing incredibly few security steps in put to defend versus these vulnerabilities”
Cell operators keep on being extremely uncovered to vulnerabilities in the GTP protocol, rendering just about every network open to denial of company attacks, impersonations and fraud campaigns.
The GTP protocol is a tunneling protocol described by the 3GPP criteria to have Standard Packet Radio Support (GPRS) in 3G/4G networks security problems with it are greatly recognised.
Safety organization Good Technologies explained its tests for 28 telecom operators in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South The usa observed that every one particular was susceptible, with the attacks in some areas ready to be carried out just with a cellular cellular phone GTP problems also immediately impression 5G networks.
A single of the main flaws in the GTP protocol is that it does not look at a user’s location, an attacker can use this flaw to deliver destructive targeted traffic which the home network has difficulties determining the legitimacy of subscriber qualifications are also checked on S-GW (SGSN) equipment by default, which can be mimicked by an attacker to steal data, the security organization explained in a new report.
The report states that: “The trouble is that location tracking have to be cross-protocol, which implies examining the subscriber’s actions by applying SS7 or Diameter. The security instruments made use of on most networks do not have this kind of abilities.”
The researchers analyzed the networks by simulating authentic-earth attacks by sending ask for to an operator’s network. Employing instruments this kind of as a PT Telecom Vulnerability Scanner and a PT Telecom Attack Discovery they observed that DoS attacks have been effective 83 p.c of the time.
Dmitry Kurbatov, CTO at Good Technologies commented that: “Every network analyzed was observed to be susceptible to DoS, impersonation and fraud. In follow, this implies that attackers could interfere with network equipment and leave an whole city devoid of communications, defraud operators and customers, impersonate people to access different resources, and make operators pay for non-existent roaming services. Moreover, the risk stage is incredibly substantial: some of these attacks can be done applying just a cellular cellular phone.”
GTP Protocol and 5G
Sad to say 5G networks are deployed on the Evolved Packet Main (EPC) which was also made use of to set up the 4G Prolonged-Phrase Evolution network, as this kind of 5G is also susceptible to same flaws opened up by the GTP protocol.
The use of the EPC network is meant to be only a momentary measure till 5G’s main standalone networks is set up, but till that is in put 5G is susceptible to the same security hazards as all the other networks.
Dmitry Kurbatov states that: “We can say that most of today’s 5G networks, just like 4G kinds, are susceptible to these styles of attacks. This tends to make the security vulnerabilities of the GTP protocol urgent – as the greater use of 5G vastly boosts the harm an attack this kind of as a denial of company attack could do.”
“Currently, operators are placing incredibly few security steps in put to defend versus these vulnerabilities and are also making configuration mistakes that are placing their networks at even further risk.
“We urge operators to browse this investigation and pay additional interest to the GTP protocol and comply with the suggestions of the GSMA FS.twenty GPRS Tunnelling Protocol (GTP) Safety, together with employing ongoing checking and examination of signalling targeted traffic to detect opportunity security threats.”