Performance Evaluation of Public Key-Based Authentication in Future Mobile Communication Systems

Abstract

<p>While mobile hosts are evolving into full-IP enabled devices, there is a greater demand to provide a more flexible, reconfigurable, and scalable security mechanism in mobile communication systems beyond 3G (B3G). Work has already begun on such an &#147;all-IP&#148; end-to-end solution, commonly referred to as 4G systems. Fully fledged integration between heterogeneous networks, such as 2.5G, UMTS, WLAN, Bluetooth, and the Internet, demands fully compatible, time-tested, and reliable mechanisms to depend on. SSL protocol has proved its effectiveness in the wired Internet and it will probably be the most promising candidate for future wireless environments. In this paper, we discuss existing problems related to authentication and key agreement (AKA) procedures, such as compromised authentication vectors attacks, as they appear in current 2/2.5G/3G mobile communication systems, and propose how SSL, combined with public key infrastructure (PKI) elements, can be used to overcome these vulnerabilities. In this B3G environment, we perceive authentication as a service, which has to be performed at the higher protocol layers irrespective of the underlying network technology. Furthermore, we analyze the effectiveness of such a solution, based on measurements of a &#147;prototype&#148; implementation. Performance measurements indicate that SSL-based authentication can be possible in terms of service time in future wireless systems, while it can simultaneously provide both the necessary flexibility to network operators and a high level of confidence to end users.</p

A Survey of Public Key Infrastructure-Based Security for Mobile Communication Systems

“…Kambourakis et al [33] proposed techniques for the existing problems that are related to AKA. This include compromising authentication vector attacks as they appear in current 2/2.5G/3G mobile communication systems, the study also proposed a scheme that combined secure sockets layer (SSL) with PKI elements and protects user's identity IMSI.…”

“…Compared with other AKA for future mobile networks and 3G-AKA, this scheme provides a decent efficiency and relative security to resist potential attacks as well as attacks in heterogeneous network infrastructure. However, this scheme has weaknesses similar to that of [33]. It lacks of internetwork authentication approach and also has relatively high computational cost.…”

Evaluation of Security Attacks on UMTS Authentication Mechanism

“…UMTS AKA is a one-pass challenge response protocol. The UMTS authentication mechanism has been studied [7,8,9,10,11], resulting in suggestions for some improvements. The AKA mechanism executes mutual authentication of the user and the network using a symmetric key, K and derives the new cipher and integrity keys.…”

“…The MSISDN number (or numbers) is a telephone number with full international prefix and is associated with the IMSI number in the valid databases. The MSISDN numbers are (generally) public information, while the IMSI number is designed for system internal identification and routing intentions [10,12].…”

Evaluation of UMTS security architecture and services

“…The UMTS authentication mechanism has been thoroughly studied [11,12,13,14,15], resulting in suggestions for some improvements. 3) Security mode set-up procedure: The sequence of message flow that is followed for both ciphering and integrity protection set-up is shown in Fig.…”