Toward SSL integration in SIM SmartCards

The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) specifications introduce the 03.48 standard to allow the OTA (on-the-air) platform to securely communicate with SIM (subscriber identity module) cards. This standard operates above unreliable links such as SMS instead of reliable transport protocols such as TCP. In this paper, we propose to introduce the SSL (secure sockets layer) protocol in order to assure an end-to-end security and reliability between the SIM card and the OTA server transparently to the terminal. This would have an impact on new services independent of middlemen. A computation of the cryptographic loads demonstrates the enhancement our proposed protocol provides.