Developing and implementing encryption algorithm for addressing GSM security issues

Abstract

GSM bears numerous security vulnerabilities. Although GSM's architecture is designed in such a way to provide various security features like authentication, data/signaling confidentiality, and secrecy of a user yet the GSM channel is susceptible to replay, interleaving and man-in-the-middle attacks. The GSM speech service is secure up to the point where speech enters the core network. However to achieve end-to-end security it is desired that the GSM subscriber, not the network operator controls the encryption on the speech channel. A new approach of encryption at the user-end is introduced. In this paper we have tested our encryption technique on the GSM communication system using TMS320C6713 DSP Starter Kit (DSK), in real-time. Our technique encrypts the speech before entering the GSM handset which adds security and privacy. The encryption algorithm being private to the communicating GSM subscribers, the GSM channel will become exclusively confidential for them. The DSK board was used as a separate module of the system implementing the encryption algorithm. Real-time experiments were conducted to check the performance of the system in terms of its performance and latency rate.