Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 16 submissions in the queue.
posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the good-protocols-gone-bad dept.

A group of American university researchers have broken key 4G LTE protocols to generate fake messages, snoop on users, and forge user location data.

Those working on the coming 5G protocols should take note: the vulnerabilities are most worrying because they're written into the LTE protocols, and could therefore have an industry-wide impact.

Identified by Purdue University's Syed Rafiul Hussain, Shagufta Mehnaz and Elisa Bertino with the University of Iowa's Omar Chowdhury, the protocol procedures affected are:

  • Attach – the procedure that associates a subscriber device with the network (for example, when you switch the phone on);
  • Detach – occurs when you switch your device off, or if the network disconnects from the device (for example because of poor signal quality, or because the phone can't authenticate to the network); and
  • Paging – this protocol is part of call setup, to force the device to re-acquire system information, and in emergency warning applications.

The researchers' paper (PDF) describes an attack tool called LTEInspector, which the researchers said found exploitable vulnerabilities that resulted in "10 new attacks and nine prior attacks” (detecting old vulnerabilities helped the researchers validate that the new vulns were genuine).


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:13PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:13PM (#648701) Journal

    If that is true, people would immediately derive meaning from 'words' like:

    afluenza
    jerkov
    mansplainer

    If what you say is true, then I would expect people to immediately infer meaning from these words, and potentially that these words would come into common use and therefore become actual words. Just not yet appearing in the Oxford dictionary. Like Perfory [urbandictionary.com]. But most people here probably don't remember perfory due to excessive use of laser or inkjet.

    --
    Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:22PM

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:22PM (#648708)

    Not everyone knows all words, and many words require context.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy [wikipedia.org]

    BTW, Google happily found those words that you listed.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:28PM (1 child)

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:28PM (#648713)

    Also:

    "Vuln

    Abbreviation for "vulnerability." Another way to refer to bugs or software flaws that can be exploited by hackers."

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg79v4/hacking-glossary [vice.com]

    So, not the first time or place the word has been used, and people know what it means. You are, of course, free to not like it, much as I hate the usage of "dampening" to mean "damping", or "less people" instead of "fewer people", but we're both fighting a loosing battle.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:35PM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:35PM (#648717) Journal

      we're both fighting a loosing battle.

      Our language is defined by shared opinion. I am sharing mine and I encourage you to share yours, even if we are outnumbered by people who believe that "not tight" and "not win" and "misplace" are interchangeable L-words.