Real-time interception systems for the GSM protocol

Author

González-Castaño, Francisco J é ; Vales-Alonso, Javier ; Pousada-Carballo, José M. ; De Vicente, Fernando Isasi ; Fernández-Iglesias, Manuel J.

Author_Institution

Departamento de Ingenieria Telematica, Vigo Univ., Spain

Volume

51

Issue

5

fYear

2002

fDate

9/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

904

Lastpage

914

Abstract

A GSM protocol interceptor is a device located in a (possibly) closed area that listens to information exchanged between base stations (BSs) and mobile stations (MSs). This paper presents three new interception systems for security purposes. The first one (detector) forces all idle MSs nearby to generate activity, which can be used to activate an alarm of MS presence. The second one (selective interceptor) monitors information exchange between MS and BS and, in case of MS activity, (1) extracts messages containing MS identifiers and (2) checks identifiers in a local cache to decide if an external jamming unit should block individual calls (either incoming or outgoing). The third system (enhanced selective interceptor) combines the previous two systems to improve blocking performance. We analyze transactions of the GSM protocol that are relevant to interception system operation. Those transactions impose real-time constraints that we quantify. We present real tests and simulations that address the feasibility of the systems.

Keywords

cellular radio; jamming; protocols; radio reception; telecommunication security; GSM protocol interceptor; base stations; enhanced selective interceptor; information exchange monitoring; jamming unit; mobile stations; real-time interception systems; security; Base stations; Data mining; Data security; Detectors; Downlink; GSM; Jamming; Protocols; Real time systems; System testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Vehicular Technology, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9545

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TVT.2002.801547

Filename

1105930