User Privacy in Legacy Mobile Network Protocols

Abstract

Current security issues in mobile networks have great impact on user privacy. With the focus directed to signaling protocols security, network security and air interface encryption, critical configurations and design flaws that would impact user privacy can be overlooked. The leakage of IMSI on the broadcast channels during network paging is a privacy issue worth considering. In this paper, we present an experimental analysis for the IMSI leakage in the GSM broadcast channels during the paging procedure and the impact of this type of passive attack on user's privacy.