1. Mobile Commerce Security
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Mobile Commerce Security
Presentation By
Mahmoud Youssef Mohamed
PhD Candidate – IT major
Houston, Texas

2. Mobile Commerce: The future of E-commerce
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Topics
Mobile Commerce: The future of E-commerce
Mobile Commerce Applications
Mobile Computing Technologies
New Security Risks
New Privacy Risks
Software Risks
Conclusion
Houston, Texas

3. What is Mobile Commerce
Presenter's name here
What is Mobile Commerce
April 13-14, 1999
Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) is an emerging discipline involving applications, mobile devices, wireless networks, location technologies, and middleware [Cousins and Varshney]
Mobile devices usually use a different set of Internet protocol called the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
Mobile commerce, or M-commerce in short, is a new discipline that extends e-commerce applications by enhancing existing applications to support mobile customers and by providing new applications that didn’t exist for the fixed infrastructure.
This discipline emerged as a result of the developments in several areas: Mobile devices such as smart phones and personal digital assistance have reached new levels of usability and performance. Increasingly, these devices are equipped with wireless communications capabilities and location technologies.
Mobile commerce also includes middleware services that connect the backend services to the mobile devices and provide translation between the different communications and applications protocols at both sides.
For example, most mobile devices use a set of protocols called the wireless application protocol (WAP) this set of protocols provide a functionality similar to the set of Internet protocols that reside on a desktop computer which includes TCP/IP, SSL, HTTP and other application protocols. WAP also includes a markup language based on XML, called the wireless markup language (WML)
It is typical that the translation between the two sets of protocols is conducted by a middleware software at the mobile support station (MSS) which is part of the infrastructure of the wireless provider.
M-commerce is also benefiting from other emerging technologies such as Web services and Ontologies.
Houston, Texas

4. The Enabling Technologies
Presenter's name here
The Enabling Technologies
April 13-14, 1999
Wireless Networks
Wireless WAN (CDPD)
Wireless LAN (802.11a and b)
Short Range (Bluetooth)
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Location Technologies
Outdoor Technologies
Infrastructure-based
Device-based
Indoor Technologies
Mobile Devices
Programming Standards (J2ME)
The essence of mobile commerce is to be able to connect to the Internet from any where. Currently, Smart phones and PDAs can connect to the internet using technologies that are based on the Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD). Although, the current speeds are limited, the new generations of wireless networks such as UTMS provide much better speeds. In addition, these technologies provide always-on connectivity. Moreover, the wireless application protocol uses compression techniques to reduce the need for large bandwidth.
Other wireless technologies include the wireless LAN or Wi-Fi and short range technologies such as Bluetooth. Theses technologies can play an important role in some applications such as mobile payments. They also enrich connectivity, for example using a Bluetooth equipped phone, a laptop or a PDA can connect to the internet from anywhere
Another interesting wireless technology is the radio frequency identification (RFID) which is used in EZ-Pass. This technology can be used for collecting information from moving objects. It can also be utilized in applications such as supply chain management.
The other type of technologies that play important role in mobile commerce applications is location technologies. Wireless networks can provide approximate information about the location of a customer, this information exist as part of the routing information in the wireless network, and therefore, this location technology it is classified as infrastructure-based technology.
Other technologies such as the global positioning system provide more accurate location but requires some add-in to the mobile device. This technology is typically used for driver assistance systems and in military applications such as guided missiles
For indoor applications, other technologies are used such as the smart badge that is developed by Xerox Labs in UK
One of the major obstacles in the way of mobile computing in general and mobile commerce in particular was the capabilities of mobile device. In the recent years, these device have achieved remarkable levels of usability and computing power. Increasingly, wireless communications and location capabilities are becoming standard components of these devices or at lest available as add-ins.
Another achievement that is shaping the mobile commerce discipline is the standardization of programming language for mobile devices. Languages such as JAVA 2 Mobile Edition (J2ME) makes it possible to write powerful applications on the mobile device that can leverage and integrate the different capabilities of the device including voice, telephony, security, communications, and location capabilities.
These standards are designed for devices with very small memory such as smart phones.
Houston, Texas

5. The Market Opportunity for M-Commerce
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
The Market Opportunity for M-Commerce
Reports from Siemens and Ericsson (2001) predict:
the number of mobile devices to reach 500 million devices by 2002, and
1 billion devices by 2004
Durlacher (2000) expects the European market to reach € 23 billion by 2003
Mobile advertising will be the killer application with 23% of the market size and mobile shopping will be the third major application with 15% of the market size
One question that can be raised is “why would business organizations spend on developing mobile commerce applications?”
The answer is that mobile commerce represents remarkable market opportunity. There are so many numbers out there about the market size for mobile commerce applications, but let’s first see the advantages of mobile commerce, there are several advantages
- first it is very convenient since it can be highly personalized according to the user profile and location. In addition it works on personal device that the customers carry with them naturally.
- Second, mobile commerce reaches more people than e-commerce. While e-commerce requires a desktop computer, Internet connection, and Internet skills, mobile commerce requires only a smart phone and it uses the same interface of the phone.
Here are some numbers, according to Siemens and Ericsson, the number of handsets sold is expected to be 500 million by end of 2002 and to reach the 1 billion mark by 2004.
Although the percentage of Internet-capable phones among these is currently less than 15%, it is quickly increasing and the number of users who actually use the Internet from their phones is also growing quickly.
A major research house in Europe called Durlacher expects the size of the European market to reach 23 billion Euro 2003 by. The actual numbers seem to be even better than that.
Mobile advertising and mobile shopping which are the applications that we focus on in our research are the killer applications of mobile commerce and represent 38% of the market for mobile commerce.
Houston, Texas

6. Mobile Commerce Applications
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Mobile Commerce Applications
Source (Ovum):
Houston, Texas

7. Mobile Commerce Applications
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Mobile Commerce Applications
Mobile Financial Services
Mobile Security Services
Mobile Shopping
Mobile Advertising
Mobile Dynamic Information Management
Mobile Information Provisioning
Mobile Entertainment
Mobile Telematics
Mobile Customer Care
Houston, Texas

8. Mobile Computing Technologies
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Mobile Computing Technologies
Mobile Computing Environment
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Architecture
Comparison between Internet and WAP technologies
Bluetooth
Houston, Texas

9. Mobile Computing Environment
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Mobile Computing Environment
Source: Barbara, D. 1999, Mobile Computing and Databases – A survey
Houston, Texas

10. WAP Architecture Web Server WAP Gateway Client HTTP WSP/WTP
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
WAP Architecture
Web Server
Content
CGI
Scripts
etc.
with WML-Script
WML Decks
WAP Gateway
WML Encoder
WMLScript
Compiler
Protocol Adapters
Client
WML
WML-Script
WTAI
Etc.
HTTP
WSP/WTP
Source: WAP Forum, Wireless Application Protocol Overview
Houston, Texas

11. Comparison between Internet and WAP technologies
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Comparison between Internet and WAP technologies
HTML
JavaScript
HTTP
TLS - SSL
TCP/IP
UDP/IP
Wireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Environment (WAE)
Session Layer (WSP)
Security Layer (WTLS)
Transport Layer (WDP)
Other Services and
Applications
Transaction Layer (WTP)
SMS
USSD
CSD
IS-136
CDMA
CDPD
PDC-P
Etc..
Bearers:
Source: WAP Forum, Wireless Application Protocol Overview
Houston, Texas

12. Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is the codename for a small, low-cost, short range wireless technology specification
Enables users to connect a wide range of computing and telecommunication devices easily and simply, without the need to buy, carry, or connect cables.
Bluetooth enables mobile phones, computers and PDAs to connect with each other using short-range radio waves, allowing them to "talk" to each other
It is also cheap
Houston, Texas

13. Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Bluetooth Security
Bluetooth provides security between any two Bluetooth devices for user protection and secrecy
mutual and unidirectional authentication
encrypts data between two devices
Session key generation
configurable encryption key length
keys can be changed at any time during a connection
Authorization (whether device X is allowed to have access service Y)
Trusted Device: The device has been previously authenticated, a link key is stored and the device is marked as “trusted” in the Device Database.
Untrusted Device: The device has been previously authenticated, link key is stored but the device is not marked as “trusted” in the Device Database
Unknown Device: No security information is available for this device. This is also an untrusted device.
automatic output power adaptation to reduce the range exactly to requirement, makes the system extremely difficult to eavesdrop
Houston, Texas

14. New Security Risks Abuse of cooperative nature of ad-hoc networks
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
New Security Risks
Abuse of cooperative nature of ad-hoc networks
An adversary that compromises one node can disseminate false routing information.
Malicious domains
A single malicious domain can compromise devices by downloading malicious code
Roaming (are you going to the bad guys ?)
Users roam among non-trustworthy domains
Houston, Texas

15. New Security Risks Cont’d
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
New Security Risks Cont’d
Launching attacks from mobile devices
With mobility, it is difficult to identify attackers
Loss or theft of device
More private information than desktop computers
Security keys might have been saved on the device
Access to corporate systems
Bluetooth provides security at the lower layers only: a stolen device can still be trusted
Houston, Texas

16. New Security Risks Cont’d
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
New Security Risks Cont’d
Problems with Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS) protocol
Security Classes:
No certificates
Server only certificate (Most Common)
Server and client Certificates
Re-establishing connection without re-authentication
Requests can be redirected to malicious sites
Houston, Texas

17. New Privacy Risks Monitoring user’s private information
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
New Privacy Risks
Monitoring user’s private information
Examples: DoubleClick and Engage
Offline telemarketing
Examples: At&T and Sprint
Who is going to read the “legal jargon”
Value added services based on location awareness (Location-Based Services)
Example: Pushing cuisine information and coupons
Houston, Texas

18. Targeted Marketing Applications
Presenter's name here
Targeted Marketing Applications
April 13-14, 1999
Keeping customers interested mandates personalization (Based on their user profiles)
Adding location to the customer selection criteria makes it even more effective.
Much information can be inferred by linking a user profile to her current location
W3C’s Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)
informing users about the privacy policy of the cites they visit
The way targeted marketing works is to select a group of customers and send them the advertising information. This information usually include some incentive for the customer to accept receiving the offer and to accept the offer itself.
The selection of customers is based on two criteria: Profiles criteria and location criteria.
Someone might argue that the marketer does not have to select, they can just send to everyone. The answer is no, she has to select for several reasons, state laws may request the marketer to have permission from the user before sending such information. Second, if the customer receives every offer, she will just ignore all of them as it happens with Spam.
There are several issues related to customer profiles:
The first issue is what information to collect about the customer. There is no agreement on that, there were a proposed standard from Netscape called the Open Profiling standard, but this standard has never be ratified. In general we are interested in the information that are in interest for the marketer such as the demographic information, work information, Salary or income etcetera.
The other issue is how to construct this profile. Currently, marketers collect user profiles by two means, first by asking them to fill web forms, second by tracking the navigation from a web page to another which is usually referred to as analysis of clickstream.
To address this issue and the other issues related to user profiles, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established a working group called the the platform for Privacy Protection Preferences or (P3P). This platform is developing standards related to user profiles and protection of users privacy. According to P3P, the user would create her profile on her computer or device and whenever she visits a web site, it is up to her to share her profiles with that web site or not. However, P3P does not enforce any privacy policies, it just helps the user to learn about the privacy policies of the web site they visit and automate the performance of their preferences towards these policies, for example, the user may state that she does not want to receive cookies from third parties, then P3P implementation should take care of that. Currently Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 provides some of the functionality proposed in P3P.
In mobile commerce applications, privacy take a new dimension since the marketer can know not only user’s profile but also her current location. Of course knowing where someone is, is a good indication to what she might be doing.
However, marketers need this location information in their customer selection criteria. Otherwise a hotel manager in new jersey might be offering a room to someone who already lives in new jersey.
The next slide show a scenario where a marketer targets customers based on their location and profiles
Houston, Texas

19. Privacy Protection
Considerable privacy protection can be achieved by designing an access control model that enables the user to define the access modes granted to merchants based on:
The individual merchant or a class of merchants
The time interval in the query
The location windows in the query
However, centralized management of profiles is needed.

20. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Risks
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Software Risks
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Risks
Platform Risks
Java Security
Application Risks
WMLScript
Risks of WMLScript
Houston, Texas

21. Recall the WAP Architecture
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
WAP Risks
WAP Gap
Claim: WTLS protects WAP as SSL protects HTTP
Problem: In the process of translating one protocol to another, information is decrypted and re-encrypted
Recall the WAP Architecture
Solution: Doing decryption/re-encryption in the same process on the WAP gateway
Wireless gateways as single point of failure
Houston, Texas

22. Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Platform Risks
Without a secure OS, achieving security on mobile devices is almost impossible
Learned lessons:
Memory protection of processes
Protected kernel rings
File access control
Authentication of principles to resources
Differentiated user and process privileges
Sandboxes for untrusted code
Biometric authentication
Houston, Texas

23. What is Java?
The most robust, easy-to-use, versatile language available today
Applications written for traditional operating systems are tied directly to that platform and cannot be easily ported to other platforms
often vendors need to provide different versions of the same software
Java has Write Once/Run Anywhere executables
allows Java programs written on one type of hardware or OS to run unmodified on almost any other type of computer
Best aspects is that it is architecture neutral
Java applications
Java Virtual Machine
Unix Windows OS/ MacOS
Sparc Intel/Others PowerPC

24. What is Java? translates line-by-line and executes them, so slower
Java is both interpreted and compiled
interpreted languages - BASIC
translates line-by-line and executes them, so slower
compiled languages - COBOL, C, C++, FORTRAN
translates the entire program into machine code and then the machine code is executed, so faster
First, source code is compiled to an intermediate code called bytecode
Java runtime interpreter then translates the complied bytecode to machine code
bytecode is different from machine code (more like assembly language)
includes the best aspects of C/C++, leaving out complicated aspects such as multiple inheritance, pointers etc.

25. What is mobile code?
Mobile code is a general term that refers to executable code that migrates and executes on remote hosts
Code travels from server machine to the client machine
Provides
rich data display
a stock broker may publish the results of a financial analysis model
instead of publishing the result of the model as a graph, the broker could publish the model itself with connections to live stock market data and customer’s portfolio
efficient use of network

26. What is Mobile Code?

27. Types of Mobile Code
One-hop agents
sent on demand from a server to a client machine and executed
after execution, the result generated by the agent or the agent itself is sent to the owner who sent it
e.g. Java applets
Applet is a small piece of executable code, which may be included in a web page
Multi-hop agents
sent on the network to perform a series of tasks
These agents may visit multiple agent platforms and communicate with other agents
you may send personalized agents to roam the Internet.
To monitor your favorite Web sites
get you the ticket you couldn't get at the box office
help you to schedule meetings for your next overseas trip.

28. Threats to and due to mobile code
Malicious code
may disclose or damage our private data
spend our money?
Crash the system?
challenge is to execute useful applets while protecting systems from malicious code
Malicious host
challenge is to protect the agents from malicious servers

29. Techniques to prevent malicious code
Code blocking
authentication
safe interpreters
fault isolation
code inspection and verification

30. Code blocking Disabling applications Filtering
switching off Java in Java-enabled browsers
relies on users complying with the security policy
not easy to administer in a large environment
prevents intranet use of mobile code
Filtering
firewalls to filter web pages containing applets
does not rely on user compliance
management can be centralized

31. Code blocking using firewalls
Rewriting <applet> tags
browser does not receive the <applet> and so no applet is fetched
Blocking by hex signatures
Java class files start with a 4-byte hex signature CA FE BA BE
apply in combination with <applet> blocker
Blocking by filenames
files with names ending .class
need to handle .zip files that encapsulate Java class files

32. Authentication Achieved through code signing
based on the assurance obtained when the source of the code is trusted
on receiving the mobile code, client verifies whether it was signed by an entity on a trusted list
used in JDK 1.1 and Active X
once signature is verified, code has full privileges
Problems
trust model is all or nothing (trusted versus untrusted)
needs public key infrastructure
limits users (the untrusted code may be useful and benign)
no protection if the code from a trusted source is malicious

33. Safe Interpreters
Instead of using compiled executables, interpret mobile code
interpreter enforces a security policy
each instruction is executed only if it satisfies the security policy
Examples of safe interpreters
Safe-Tel
telescript
Java VM

34. Safe interpreter: The Sandbox security model
The applet’s actions are restricted to a sandbox
the applet may do anything it wants within its sandbox, but cannot read or alter any data outside of its sandbox
Applets and applications
Local code is trusted and has full access to system resources
downloaded remote code is restricted
Java applications may be purchased and installed just like traditional applications, these are trusted
Remote code
sandbox
Local code
JVM
Valuable Resources

35. Building the sandbox code has only valid instructions
class loader
responsible for loading classes
given class name, fetches remote applet’s code (I.e, locates, generates its definitions)
keeps namespaces of different applets separate
bytecode verifier
checks a classfile for validity (bytecode conformance to language specification and that there are no violations of Java language rules)
code has only valid instructions
code does not overflow or underflow stack
does not change the data types illegally
goal is to prevent access to underlying machine via crashes, undefined states

36. Building the Sandbox security manager
enforces the boundaries of the sandbox
whenever an applet tries to perform an action, the Java virtual machine first asks the security manger if the action can be performed safely
JVM performs the action only if the security manager approves
e.g, a trusted applet from the local disk trying to read the disk
imported untrusted applet may be trying to connect back to its home server
if no security manager installed, all privileges are granted

37. Building the sandbox Security manager will not allow
untrusted applet to read/write to a file, delete a file, get any info about a file, execute OS commands or native code, load a library, establish a network connection to any machine other than the applet’s home server

38. Extensions to the Sandbox
JDK 1.1.x
supports digitally signed applets
if signature can be verified, a remote applet is treated as local trusted code
JDK 1.2
no concept of local trusted code
all code is subject to verification
fine grained domain based and extensible access control
typed and grouped permissions
configurable security policy

39. Application Risks to Mobile Devices
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Application Risks to Mobile Devices
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) implementation
No type check is implemented
No sandbox or stack introspection
The use of C language with its related problems
Security tradeoffs imposed by limited capabilities
Houston, Texas

40. Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
WMLScript
Scripting is heavily used for client-side processing to offload servers and reduce demand on bandwidth
Wireless Markup Language (WML) is the equivalent to HTML, but derived from XML
WMLScript is WAP’s equivalent to JavaScript
Derived from JavaScript™
Houston, Texas

41. WMLScript Cont’d Integrated with WML Reduces network traffic
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
WMLScript Cont’d
Integrated with WML
Reduces network traffic
Has procedural logic, loops, conditionals, etc
Optimized for small-memory, small-CPU devices
Bytecode-based virtual machine
Compiler in network
Works with Wireless Telephony Application (WTA) to provide telephony functions
Houston, Texas

42. Risks of WMLScript Lack of Security Model
Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Risks of WMLScript
Lack of Security Model
Does not differentiate trusted local code from untrusted code downloaded from the Internet. So, there is no access control!!
WML Script is not type-safe.
Scripts can be scheduled to be pushed to the client device without the user’s knowledge
Does not prevent access to persistent storage
Possible attacks:
Theft or damage of personal information
Abusing user’s authentication information
Maliciously offloading money saved on smart cards
Houston, Texas

43. Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Conclusion
The platform and languages used have failed to adopt fundamental security concepts
Encrypted communication protocols are necessary to provide confidentiality, integrity, and authentication services to m-commerce application
The greatest risk is possibly coming from mobile code
Houston, Texas

44. Presenter's name here
April 13-14, 1999
Conclusion Cont’d
Some of these problems are expected to be fixed in the near future. However, other problems will continuo to exist.
Security models have to be part of the design
Currently, accumulated experience in the security field has not been fully utilized in mobile commerce systems.
The success of mobile commerce will depend critically on the level of security available.
Houston, Texas