Comparing Wireless Communication Technologies And Evaluating LTE/LTE-A Network Security In An Essay.

The purpose of the assignment is to compare the wireless communication technologies and evaluate the LTE/LTE-A network security. Students will be able to complete the following ULOs:

1. Compare standards-based technologies used in various networks;
2. Test and evaluate various wireless networks performance;

Types of Wireless Communication Technologies

LTE network provides services for millions of customers due to its high rate of bundle width, better efficiency and very low latency than other cellular networks. This does not keep it out from suffering from upcoming security threats due to its architecture [1]. As a result, there is great need to carry out rapid and more precise security administration on this kind of network. To achieve this investigation, collection and data examination for intruder detection are required to be carried out as basics. This report explains the security measures that have been put in place in order to prevent these attacks. The security features and the mode of operation of other wireless networks are also discussed.

It’s also called a mobile network. This is a network where by the latest link is always wireless. It is spread over land zones known as cells that are served at at-least one fixed area transceiver in a base station. There are several types of wireless communication which include; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth network, 3G network, GPRS ,satellite network and edge networks [2].These cellular networks have different characteristics in terms of communication spectrums, modulation techniques and network speed and can be attacked differently. These characteristics are described below:

These are techniques whereby a generated signal is spread into the required frequency domain with specific bandwidth [3].

• Wi-Fi

Radio signals make this cellular network communication to become successful. The signals are transmitted from Wi-Fi antennas which are then received by Wi-Fi receivers such phones, PCs or radios that are equipped with Wi-Fi cards. Whenever a computer receives a signal within the range of the wireless network which is normally below 500 feet [4], the cards on the end devices receive the signal and then connect to the available network. Antennae and routers are the main routers that receive and transmit the frequencies.

• Bluetooth

This wireless network operates at a bandwidth of 2.4 to 2.485 GHZ using a hopping spectrum at nominal rate of 16*10^2 HOPS/SEC. Its operation ranges up to one meter. It’s mostly found in mobile devices [5].Bluetooth divides the data into packets and transmits them one by one. Bluetooth enables devices to communicate with each other wirelessly through short range devices called piconets.

• GPRS network

This is a third generation type of a network that allows its users to remain online. It uses radio waves to pass its frequency from the sender to the receiver [6]. It allows the users to communicate through messages and voices. More so it can be used to track the location of users.

• 3 and 4G networks

Techniques Used in Wireless Communication

This networks reuses frequency to transmit their signals for communication. Frequency reuse is a method in which the same radio is reused within a given location with measurable distances between each other.

This describes how frequencies move from one location to another .Different kind of wireless technologies have different modulation techniques.

• Wi-Fi

This technology uses two radio frequency techniques to transfer their signals. The 802.11b uses direct link spread technique to be transferred. This bit is coded and modulated using a special Quadrature keying technique.

Another technique that is used in the modulation process is the 802.11a and g that uses the (OFDM) [7]. In OFDM modulation, the accessible radio frequency is separated into a sum of some stations bits that are sent to each channel. Some of the information transmitted using this modulation technique is redundant so the receiver does not wait to receive all information that is available.

• Bluetooth

Bluetooth uses Gaussian frequency shift keying that was only available during its creation process.

• GPRS

This cellular network is based on modular technique known as Gaussian minimum key shifting

• 3 and 4 G

Both QAM and QPSK techniques are used in modularizing this wireless technology [8] .The available signals are demodulated at the receiver where the main message can be recovered.

 These are techniques that wireless network uses to connect to the available devices. The cellular network access media through sublayers together make up the data link in the OSL model.

Cellular networks have different kind of speed .Some vary according to the distance between the sender and the receiver.

• Wi-Fi

It has fixed channel of speed bandwidth of 25 MHz for 802.11b and 20 MHz for 802.11a

• Bluetooth

Bluetooth has a speed of 25Mbps and uses 802.11 network standard.

• GPRS

This cellular network supports a speed of up to 114kbps. It’s limited in such a way that it cannot send data while making calls. It’s a 2G network but more slow than the edge network.

• 3 and 4G network

This is a network that has a very high speed. Its minimum consistent speed is 144Kpbs. Since there are many varieties of 3G network, each type of 3G network has different network speed.

• Wi-Fi

Since security issues are becoming defiance issues in Wi-Fi networks, encryption has been included to protect the networks. Encryption is an option in Wi-Fi and there several techniques that are used to encode password which include WEP and WPA encryption techniques.

• Bluetooth

Bluetooth is also exposed to security threats just like Wi-Fi. The user can prevent this by setting his/her Bluetooth in non-discoverable mode.

• GPRS and 3 G networks

Security Measures for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Networks

This networks is not exposed to security threats like the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The structural design of LTE is made up of three modules which include:

• User equipment
• Evolved packet core
• ETRAN

Evolved packet data interconnects with packet data network in external world such as isolated systems and multi sub-systems [9]. The interfaces between the systems are also labeled. Its diagram representation is as shown below.

The design of the user apparatus for LTE is related to the ones that are used in UMS and GSM. The model has the following vital modules.

• Mobile termination- which switches all the communication purpose and functions.
• Terminal equipment’s- this one is used in terminating the information streams.
• Universal integrated circuit card used for running a specific application that is used in the network.

USIM within the network keeps information about the sim card. This can be the phone number and contact books.

This component has the following architecture [9].

It handles communication between evolved packet and the mobile like a single communication packet and the base stations which are called the ENodeB [10]. ENodeB controls information transfer between the mobile and the station. It also sends and receives communication using radio frequencies from mobiles.

The figure below displays the architecture of the EPC.

• Home subscriber server (HSS) -is a data store that is found at the center and contains all the data about subscribers [11].
• Packet data network – this is the part that is used to communicate with the outside world.
• Mobility management entity - controls the operation of the mobiles by providing messages with signals.

This section summarizes the possible attacks that LTE cellular network may experience.

This section describes the attacks on the core network.

• DOS attack

These attacks are very serious to the network. They are normally launched by a mobile botnet which can also be flooded to detach messages.

• Overload of hss

Since hss plays a vital part in EPC, it records data in the system like IMSI, billing and accounts data and password keys. It is also combined with Auc and produces vectors for authentication. When hss is overloaded it affects the speed of the network. It is very easy to launch e.g an attacker can send fake information to the IMSI constantly [12].

• Overload of sgw

These are the attacks that are often neglected. An insider who has a general access to the network elements can disrupt the system through installing a malicious element that will disrupt all the communications in LTE core network. E.g. an insider can shut down a network node.

• Attack on IMS

IMS system suffers from SIP – associated attacks. This is because IMS system is defenseless to more mutual attacks due to internet connectivity.

• Attacks on the SMS

SMS is a service to phone users which enables them to communicate through text messages [13]. The sms technology is based on IMS system. Short messages are conveyed over packet changed networks. Attacks on the SMS include; Sms spoofing, Sms spamming among others.

• SIR related attacks

These are severe attacks on IMS .This attack can be launched through flooding attacks where an attacker conveys a deal of SIP demand messages such as record messages. This attack causes resource exhaustion.

Architecture of LTE Network

• SQL injection attacks

SQL infusion assault enables aggressors to adjust the information in SIP intermediaries, causing foreswearing of-benefit in the validation methodology amongst UE and P-CSCF. Moreover, HTTP informing can likewise be manhandled by attackers to dispatch SQL infusion attacks. This attack can be prevented by Reajamming technique [14].

• Signaling attacks

The LTE/LTE-A flagging attackers consistently guide malicious wakeup parcels to activate the carrier setup technique. This can prompt diffusion of an expansive number of control communications among various system components and immerse the LTEA system's assets. So, the greater part of flagging assault recognition strategies depend on the perception of bear between set-up time or the wakeup bundle age rate for a proposed recognizing technique for flagging assaults. The gathered information utilized for location incorporate UE number, conveyor number, and time of initiation or deactivation of a specific carrier [15]. The quantity of conveyor demands per UE and the between setup time can be acquired from the above information. This brought about getting the normal lifetime per conveyor and the quantity of carrier enactment demands issued by a specific UE for a particular conveyor. UE can be considered as malevolent if the setup time is not as much as the limit.

Conclusion

In summary this report compares different kinds of wireless networks. Their security threats have also been discussed and how they can be prevented. The report also discusses the architecture of LTE network and the security threats that is exposed to and how these threats can be prevented.

References

[1]Myers, R.L., Francisco, P.N., Montemurro, M.P., Halliop, A. and Chvets, I., Chantry Networks Inc,  Wireless network communication system and method. U.S. Patent 7,450,940.2008.

[2]Kesselman, A. and Markov, I., Intel Corp, Methods and apparatuses for wireless network communication wherein a universal serial bus request block (URB) is generated that will vary parameters that controls wireless transmission commands between devices. U.S. Patent 7, 930,446, 2011.

[3] M. Dong, K. Yung, and W. Kaiser. Low Power Signal Processing Architectures for Network Microsensors. In Proceedings 1997 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design, pages 173–177, Aug. 2009.

[4] D. Dudgeon and R. Mersereau. Multidimensional Digital Signal Processing, chapter 6. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2016.

 [5] M. Ettus. System Capacity, Latency, and Power Consumption in Multihop-routed SS-CDMA Wireless Networks. In Radio and Wireless Conference (RAWCON ’98), pages 55– 58, Aug.2016.

[6] J. Cao, M. Ma, H. Li, Y. Zhang, and Z. Luo, ‘‘A survey on security aspects for LTE and LTE-A networks,’’ IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 283–302, 1st Quart., 2014.

[7] Y. Park and T. Park, ‘‘A survey of security threats on 4G networks,’’ in Proc. IEEE GLOBECOM Workshops, Nov, pp. 1–6,2012.

[8] N. Seddigh, B. Nandy, R. Makkar, and J. F. Beaumont, ‘‘Security advances and challenges in 4G wireless networks,’’ in Proc. Int. Conf. PST, pp. 62–71,2010.

 [9] A. N. Bikos and N. Sklavos, ‘‘LTE/SAE security issues on 4G wireless networks,’’ IEEE Security Privacy, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 55–62, Mar./Apr. 2013.

 [9] 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Architecture Enhancement for Non-3GPP Accesses (Release 14), document 3GPP TS 23.402 V14.3.0, 2017.

 [12] 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN); Overall Description; Stage 2 (Release 14), document 3GPP TS 36.300 V14.1.0, 2016.

 [13] 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; 3GPP System Architecture Evolution (SAE); Security Architecture (Release 14), document 3GPP TS 33.401 V14.2.0, 2017.

[14] S. P. Rao, B. T. Kotte, and S. Holtmanns, ‘‘Privacy in LTE networks,’’ in Proc. EAI Int. Conf. Mob. Multimedia Commun. (ICST), pp. 176–183. [9] S. Holtmanns, S. P. Rao, and I. Oliver, ‘‘User location tracking at,2016.

[15] L. He, Z. Yan and M. Atiquzzaman, "LTE/LTE-A Network Security Data Collection and Analysis for Security Measurement: A Survey," in IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 4220-4242, 2018.