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Impersonation Attacks on a Mobile Security Protocol for End-to-End Communications

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Book cover Security and Privacy in Mobile Information and Communication Systems (MobiSec 2009)

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of a cryptographic security protocol that is designed for use in a mobile communication environment. The goal of the analysed protocol is to ensure secure end-to-end communication between two mobile users that are connected to different base stations. The analysis reveals a serious flaw in the used signature scheme of the security protocol. Exploitation of this flaw enables an intruder to use algebraic simplifications to forge signatures on arbitrary messages. Two attacks, which exploit this weakness, are detailed showing the impersonation of a mobile user and a base station, respectively. Corrections to the flawed protocol are proposed and analysed. It is established that the corrected protocol is secure against the presented attacks.

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© 2009 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Dojen, R., Pasca, V., Coffey, T. (2009). Impersonation Attacks on a Mobile Security Protocol for End-to-End Communications. In: Schmidt, A.U., Lian, S. (eds) Security and Privacy in Mobile Information and Communication Systems. MobiSec 2009. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 17. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04434-2_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04434-2_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04433-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04434-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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