Securing the Authentication Process of LTE Base Stations

Securing sensitive information like the International Mobile Subscriber Identity has been a challenge on all generations of mobile telecommunication networks, i.e., 2G, 3G and 4G. In fact, many cases of compromising users' privacy in telecom networks have been reported such as the cases of rogue base stations capable of tracking, intercepting and collecting the sensitive data without the users' knowledge. To overcome these issues, we are proposing in this paper the use of a pre-shared key in the authentication process of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) base stations to local users. We are proposing a first hop authentication procedure to verify if the base station is legitimate by the User Equipment. We simulate our approach using the NetSim simulated environment to show how it is improving the data confidentiality in LTE networks.