Experimental Security Analysis for Fake eNodeB Attack on LTE Network

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) user network is the largest population used nowadays compared to 2G and 3G in mobile telecom landscape. It is declared that LTE has provided a strong security standard in term of protecting its user for security attack on mobile communication. Fake Base Station is one of attack scheme in mobile communication infrastructure. The paper showcases the experimental analysis of the vulnerability of the LTE network which is impact to the user if we perform Fake eNodeB attack. In this experiment, we use OpenAirInterface5G, an opensource cellular platform that supports the full stack of LTE including 5G standard as the Fake eNodeB. The attack is performed by impersonating a real 4G network Operator. The result of this attack is IMSI number of users is obtained which lead the users is traceable as well as it is possible to force the target unable to be served back by the legitimate base station which leads to Denial of Service (DOS) attack. We also point out on describing the flaws of the LTE protocol that lead into this possibility of attacking and its implication especially on user identity and user connection with the operator that possibly harmed. We describe also several options to overcome the issue in the future.