You have been hearing a lot about Long Term Evolution (LTE) these days, haven’t you? From AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and other carriers, there are a lot of LTE smartphones today. This is 4G mobile broadband service promising data speeds of nearly 200 mbps, much greater than the current infrastructure allows. And this may be the reason why the US government has based its nation-wide broadband network known as Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) on LTE.
NPSBN uses LTE technology in order to keep the people of the country secure. However, there is a recent filing done by Virginia Tech Wireless [[wireless.vt.edu]] to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that informs how unsafe and prone to attack an LTE system could be. Find the filing here:
As soon as the file has been released, it has gained the attention from blogosphere on technology. This is something we find very serious. The entire 4G LTE network of a particular region such as a city could be disabled by simple jamming equipment that fits in a suitcase.
Virginia Tech has predicted the occurrence of the attack within the next five or ten years, however. Also, we may not know how popular the NPSBN will become in the coming days. This could be a very insecure and dangerous move by the government.
Various jamming methods as described by Virginia Tech include the following:
This attack denies access to a smartphone or such device to even access the tower for communication. It does so by jamming the preliminary activities carried out by the smartphone in tower access. With LTE, it is said that the synchronization with the tower is a time-consuming multi-step process that makes LTE vulnerable to this attack.
In order to establish communication, the smartphone needs to detect the primary synchronization signal from the tower. This type of attack, unlike the previous one, targets only the PSS. There are only three sequences used by LTE to initiate PSS, and a jammer could easily mimic one of these sequences to create a false PSS signal thus denying the smartphone access.
When transmitting data in LTE, the PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel) is used to transmit such information as channel quality indications, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request acknowledgements, etc. When the smartphone is doing this, it is not transmitting anything else. This makes it easy for the jammer to take advantage of PUCCH. The smartphone just sends a tiny amount of energy in PUCCH slot in order to get better uplink resources from the carrier. If the jammer simply mimics this part, it can enable better uplink for all of the devices in the area, thus creating unnecessary load.
Based on these findings, the filing to NTIA and other telecommunication organizations assumes great importance. LTE has become far and wide today and it should be secure for better communication.
NPSBN uses LTE technology in order to keep the people of the country secure. However, there is a recent filing done by Virginia Tech Wireless [[wireless.vt.edu]] to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that informs how unsafe and prone to attack an LTE system could be. Find the filing here:
Virginia Tech's response to FirstNet NOI provided by Blue Bugle
As soon as the file has been released, it has gained the attention from blogosphere on technology. This is something we find very serious. The entire 4G LTE network of a particular region such as a city could be disabled by simple jamming equipment that fits in a suitcase.
Virginia Tech has predicted the occurrence of the attack within the next five or ten years, however. Also, we may not know how popular the NPSBN will become in the coming days. This could be a very insecure and dangerous move by the government.
Various jamming methods as described by Virginia Tech include the following:
1. SSJ or Synchronization Signal Jamming
This attack denies access to a smartphone or such device to even access the tower for communication. It does so by jamming the preliminary activities carried out by the smartphone in tower access. With LTE, it is said that the synchronization with the tower is a time-consuming multi-step process that makes LTE vulnerable to this attack.
2. Primary Synchronization Signal Jamming (PSSJ)
In order to establish communication, the smartphone needs to detect the primary synchronization signal from the tower. This type of attack, unlike the previous one, targets only the PSS. There are only three sequences used by LTE to initiate PSS, and a jammer could easily mimic one of these sequences to create a false PSS signal thus denying the smartphone access.
3. Physical Uplink Control Channel Jamming
When transmitting data in LTE, the PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel) is used to transmit such information as channel quality indications, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request acknowledgements, etc. When the smartphone is doing this, it is not transmitting anything else. This makes it easy for the jammer to take advantage of PUCCH. The smartphone just sends a tiny amount of energy in PUCCH slot in order to get better uplink resources from the carrier. If the jammer simply mimics this part, it can enable better uplink for all of the devices in the area, thus creating unnecessary load.
Based on these findings, the filing to NTIA and other telecommunication organizations assumes great importance. LTE has become far and wide today and it should be secure for better communication.