Implementing IMS-AKA+: A Solution for Securing Signaling and Media Planes

Third generation network partnership project pro-posed the main solution for new generation networks, Ip multime-dia subsystem; it is mainly based on Session Initiation Protocol, the main protocol used for signaling. This protocol is a target for several attacks. As such, many improvements to secure Session Initiation Protocol have been proposed, from which we are interested in Ip multimedia subsystem Authentication and Key Agreement+ protocol. To deal with the security of this latter, a two step-verification approach was carried out: in a previous work, security specifications of IMS-AKA+ were described in AVISPA and a logical proof was established showing that IMS-AKA+ resists to many attacks such as man in the middle attack, spoofing attack, to name a few. In this paper, we proceed to the second step of validating IMS-AKA+: an implementation of this protocol was established using OMNET++ in which the functional elements of internet multimedia subsystem and exchanges in-between were specified and described. Furthermore, Ip multimedia subsystem is also based on secure real-time protocol representing the main protocol for data exchange. As such, extending the security to this protocol, we show how to use the keys generated in the signaling plane by IMS-AKA+ protocol. When compared to the standard signaling and media approach using OMNET ++ simulator and Crypto++ cryptography library, our approach outperformed the standard signaling and media planes approach in terms of exchange time.