Experimental Assessment of Private Information Disclosure in LTE Mobile Networks

Abstract

Open source software running on SDR (Software Defined Radio) devices now allow building a full-fledged mobile network at low cost. These novel tools open up for exciting possibilities to analyse and verify by experiments the behaviour of existing and emerging mobile networks in new lab environments, for instance at universities. We use SDR equipment and open source software to analyse the feasibility of disclosing private information that is sent over the LTE access network. We verify by experiments that subscriber identity information can be obtained both passively, by listening on the radio link, and actively, by running considerable low detectable rogue base stations to impersonate the commercial network. Moreover, we implement a downgrade attack (to non-LTE networks) with minimal changes to the open source software.