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Israel21c Code breakers crack GSM cellphone encryption By ISRAEL21c staffšššSeptember 07, 2003 The faults discovered in the 850 million cellphones could be used. A German computer engineer said that he had cracked the secret code used to encrypt. GSM mobile phone calls is cracked. To crack the GSM algorithm.

Prague, 15 April 1998 (RFE/RL) - Computer security engineers in the United States say they have 'cloned' a digital cellular telephone in a way that eventually could allow criminals to make free calls at the expense of legitimate users. The researchers say the fault they found in the so-called GSM encryption system also suggests that the code was deliberately weakened to allow government surveillance of calls on digital mobile phones. The announcement has cast fresh doubts on claims by major telecommunication firms that their GSM services are tamperproof. Gatherer addon 3.3.5. GSM is the world's most widely used encryption system for cellular telephones.

About 80 million cellular phones currently rely on GSM encryption. GSM also has been growing in importance in Central and Eastern Europe during the last five years. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says cellular phones have been vital to the development of business, because of long waiting times for access to landline-phone networks. Reports also suggest that GSM use has become common among organized crime syndicates in Central and Eastern Europe. In Russia, GSM has been promoted by firms like US West Inc. As a safe alternative to the older analog mobile phones.

The analog system has been attacked by computer hackers, who discovered a way to extract and 'clone,' or replicate, a caller's security code through the airwaves, while a call was being made. But, unlike the fault in the analog system, the GSM code crackers say they must first possess a GSM subscriber's phone in order to copy his identification code. They say the code can be taken from the so-called SIM card, a device shaped like a credit card inserted into a GSM phone that identifies each customer to the telephone company when they make a call. David Wager, a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley who helped crack the GSM code, says once a SIM card has been copied, its information can be stored on a computer or a simple hand-held electronic organizer.

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He said that when the computer is connected to a phone, the cellular network interprets the calls as being made by an authentic customer. The New York Times says the most intriguing development is speculation that the GSM code may have been intentionally weakened to allow government agencies to eavesdrop on cellular telephone conversations. The key to the GSM code is a 64-bit encryption system that normally would be very difficult to decipher. But the researchers at Berkeley say they've discovered that the last ten digits of the code were all zeros. Marc Briceno, director of a computer programmers' organization called the Smartcard Developers Association, says the weakened code could allow the powerful computers of national intelligence agencies quickly to decode a GSM conversation.

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Briceno says he can think of no other reason that the code would have been intentionally weakened. The New York Times report says rumors are common within the computer industry about encryption designers, who have been persuaded or forced by government agencies to weaken communications security systems or to install secret 'backdoors' (access). But, other than the recent hints of an intentionally weakened system, there has been little evidence to support speculation that the U.S. Government has been involved in such efforts. The New York Times quotes industry experts as saying that the GSM algorithms are thought to have originated in either Germany or France, rather than the United States, in 1986 or 1987. Nevertheless, details about the origins of the system remain hazy. Meanwhile, executives in the cellular telephone industry say the newly discovered flaw in the GSM system actually reinforces their claims about the security of digital cellular phones.

George Schmidt, the president of the U.S. Firm Omnipoint Communications, emphasized that there is not a way to extract GSM codes from the airwaves during use.

Schmidt says the integrity of the GSM system has not been damaged and the GSM phone users are not at risk.

Israel21c Code breakers crack GSM cellphone encryption By ISRAEL21c staffšššSeptember 07, 2003 The faults discovered in the 850 million cellphones could be used by thieves or eavesdroppers to listen in on calls, steal calls and even to impersonate phone owners. Company develops unbreakable data encryption code š Israeli counter-terrorism experts teams up with U.S. Cyber-security firm š Technion š š Experts at the Technion in Haifa who specialize in cryptography have discovered that mobile phone calls made on the popular GSM network are vulnerable to break-ins.

The faults discovered in the 850 million cellphones could be used by thieves or eavesdroppers to listen in on calls, steal calls and even to impersonate phone owners. The team of researchers in Haifa, including Professor Eli Biham and doctoral students Elad Barkan and Natan Keller, presented their findings at the Crypto 2003 conference held two weeks ago at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The 450 participants, many of whom are leaders in encryption research, 'were shocked and astounded' by their revelation that most cellphones are susceptible to misuse. 'They were very interested in our work and congratulatory,' Biham said.

If the cellphone companies in 197 countries want to correct the code errors that expose them to trickery and abuse, they will have to call in each customer to make a change in the cellphone's programming, or replace all of the cellular phones used by their subscribers. Biham, Barkan, and Keller's discovery involved a basic flaw in the encryption system of the GSM (global system for mobile communications) network, which is used by 71 percent of all cellphones. 'Elad discovered a serious flaw in the network's security system,' explained Biham.

'He found that the GSM network does not work in the proper order: First, it inflates the information passing through it in order to correct for interference and noise and only then encrypts it.' At first,'I told him (Barkan) that it was impossible,' Biham told Reuters. 'I said such a basic mistake would already have been noticed by someone else. But he was right, the mistake was there.' In the wake of this discovery, the three Technion researchers developed a method that enables cracking the GSM encryption system at the initial ringing stage, even before the call begins, and later on, listening in on the call. With the aid of a special device that can also broadcast, it is possible to steal calls and even to impersonate phone owners, even in the middle of an ongoing call. 'We can listen in to a call while it is still at the ringing stage and within a fraction of a second know everything about the user,' Biham said.

'Then we can listen in to the call. 'Using a special device it's possible to steal calls and impersonate callers in the middle of a call as it's happening,' he said.

GSM code writers made a mistake in giving high priority to call quality, correcting for noise and interference, and only then encrypting, Biham said. Recently, a new and modern encryption system was chosen as a response to previous attacks on existing encryption system. But the Technion researchers also succeeded in overcoming this improvement. The new method works for all GSM networks worldwide, including the U.S. Four years ago, a number of articles were published by Israel researchers - including Biham - warning of the possibility of cracking the GSM code. An even earlier study on this potential problem was conducted by Professor Adi Shamir of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a world expert in cryptography whose encryption system is widely used in the field of satellite television. The cellular companies responded to these earlier publications by explaining that it would be very difficult to implement these theoretical scenarios.

To crack the codes, a hacker would need to tap into a conversation at the precise moment it began and there is really no chance of doing this, the cellular firm said. Biham explained that encryption ciphers were kept absolutely secret until 1999 when a researcher called Marc Briceno succeeded to reverse engineer their algorithms. 'Since then many attempts have been made to crack them, but these attempts required knowing the call's content during its initial minutes in order to decrypt its continuation, and afterwards, to decrypt additional calls. Since there was no way of knowing call content, these attempts never reached a practical stage. Our research shows the existence of the possibility to crack the codes without knowing anything about call content,' he notes. A copy of the research was sent to GSM authorities in order to correct the problem, and the method is being patented so that in future it can be used by the law enforcement agencies.

The GSM Association, representing vendors who sell the world's largest mobile system, which is used by more than 860 million consumers in 197 countries, confirmed the security hole but said it would be expensive and complicated to exploit. 'This (technique) goes further than previous academic papers, (but) it is nothing new or surprising to the GSM community. The GSM Association believes that the practical implications of the paper are limited,' it said in a statement.

The GSM program was created some two decades ago and is now in its second generation. A third generation is being developed, Biham said, 'and since we told them about the fault, they will be able to produce it without errors, but I don't know how long it will take before the new system is released.' Biham was not aware of any clever thief who has already used the fault to cheat phone users, but 'any failure like this could eventually be discovered and used for illegal purposes.

That's why we made the information known to GSM.' Even if the cellular companies choose not to fix the breach discovered in the GSM security system, this problem will disappear when the cellular operators move to the third generation of cellular technology.

According to Biham, the problem does not exist in this next-generation standard. But it will be several years before the third-generation technology is fully deployed. Partner plans to begin trial use of the new technology next year, with commercial operation starting only at the end of the year or in 2005. Š - - R. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA '. However it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, predicting the end of the world has not been found agreeable to experience.'

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