Securing VoIP and PSTN from Integrated Signaling Network Vulnerabilities Hemant Sengar, George Mason University Ram Dantu, University of North Texas Duminda Wijesekera, George Mason University
Background :
Integration of Voice and Data Network ? ?
Public Switched Telephone Network
SS7 Protocol Stack
Integrated IP and SS7 Network Interconnect IP Network to SS7 Network ?
SIGTRAN Protocol Suite
M2PA in Signaling Transport
SS7 Network Security Threats Telecommunication Deregulation Act,1996 has opened up market SS7 design and development carried out in different environment from the presently existing one. Convergence of voice and data networks
IP Network Security Threats Denial of Service (DoS) attacks Spoofing, Sniffing. Viruses, Worms etc. Intrusion
Marriage of SS7 and IP Exponential growth of IP Telephony More ISPs attach to SS7 Network Threats to Signaling Nodes May come from SS7 side or from IP side
Signaling Nodes are Exposed Potential Threats due to Message Content ISUP’s IAM message populated with Multilevel Precedence and Preemption (MLPP) parameter Populating CIC of IAM with 0000 value Caller ID may be spoofed Contd…
Signaling Nodes are Exposed MGC is used to bridge SIP and ISUP network Translation of ISUP to SIP and mapping of ISUP parameters into SIP headers Blind interpretation
Signaling Nodes are Exposed Traffic Flow Analysis Traffic nature, load, network topology Subscriber’s behavior and identity Link Status Messages in IP Network Processor Outage Busy Out of Service
Signaling Nodes are Exposed Misbehaving Node M2PA based IPSPs have two identifiers Violation of Protocol State Machine Continuous Proving Sequence of exchanged messages
Current Status : IP Network Side Signaling Nodes may use SSL or IPSec
Secure Signaling Architecture : ?
Secure Signaling Architecture : Trust Management Authentication Gateway Screening (Firewall) Intrusion Detection Armor DoS/Vulnerabilities Signatures Rule Changes Re-Authentication Trust Negotiation
Trust Management: Define Service Level Agreements Define Access control Policy
Authentication: IETF has proposed IPSec for IP Network Our Proposal of MTPSec for SS7 Network
Proposed Solution Security Across MTP3 Layer Combination of two protocol Key Exchange (KE) Protocol Authentication Header (AH) Protocol
Authentication Header Format
Conclusion Provides Integrity and Authentication solution to all signaling nodes Enforces SLA and ACL policy at the interface Put checks on misbehaving entities
Thank You !