Security Aspects of Telecommunications: 3GPP Mobile Networks

The essential security aspects of GSM are the subscriber authentication and authorization, radio interface encryption for both signaling and communications, and the utilization of temporary identity during communications. The benefits of the subscriber identity module (SIM) card are the safety functions, interoperability within any GSM phone and network, and the flexible adding and removing of services. As soon as the network has concluded that the user is authorized, that is, the signed response (SRES) is correct, the signaling and all the communications will be encrypted. The International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) is always priority identifier within GSM network. The main aspects in UMTS protection are that it is based on GSM principles. The LTE/SAE system is designed and updated based on security risk analysis to create all possible countermeasures against the identified security risks.