Authentication and Encryption in GSM and 3GUMTS: An Emphasis on Protocols and Algorithms
This work provides a descriptive overview of security mechanisms in mobile communication systems, which is incremental as it synthesizes existing knowledge without introducing novel solutions.
The paper examines authentication and encryption protocols and algorithms in GSM and 3G/UMTS mobile networks, focusing on network architectures, components, and the KASUMI block cipher, without presenting new experimental results or numerical improvements.
Mobile communication touches every aspect of our life, it become one of the major dependencies that the 21st Century civilizations rely on. Thereby, security is a major issue that should be targeted by communication technologies. In this paper we will target authentication and encryption in GSM and 3G/UMTS. In order to understand clearly how things work, we will start by presenting the architecture of each network, its major components, its authentication algorithms, protocols used, and KASUMI Block Cipher.