Non-access-stratum request attack in E-UTRAN

Abstract

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the evolution of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). LTE revises and improves system architecture from UMTS to provide services that are more efficient. Evolved-UTRAN (E-UTRAN) is the air interface of 3GPP and it is on the upgrade path for LTE mobile networks. E-UTRAN specifies better security architecture to protect users' information. However, E-UTRAN is still not perfect. This article studies vulnerabilities of non-access-stratum (NAS) of E-UTRAN. We present illustrative attacks to exploit such vulnerabilities and demonstrate the effectiveness and the impact of such attacks on normal users by using our self-developed simulation tool.