DEF CON 31 War Stories - Nuthin But A G Thang Evolution of Cellular Networks - Tracy Mosley

4G? LTE? 3GPP? A lot of telecommunications terminology gets thrown around, but what does it actually mean? While terms like “5G”, and “packet core” may be in common use, it’s hard to understand what they mean in terms of attack surface, or even as a consumer. Very often even network diagrams will show “Core Network” as a big blob, or stop at the Radio Access Network. It’s hard to have insight into the cellular network. So, I’ll explain generation by generation!

In this talk we will walk through each step of cellular evolution, starting at 2G and ending at 5G. The never-ending attack and defend paradigm will be clearly laid out. In order to understand the attack surface, I’ll cover network topology and protocol. For each cellular generation, I will explain known vulnerabilities and some interesting attacks. In response to those vulnerabilities, mitigations for the subsequent cellular generation are put in place. But as we all know, new mitigations mean new opportunities for attackers to get creative.

While I will explain most cellular-specific terminology, a familiarity with security concepts will help to better understand this talk. Basic foundations of communications systems, information theory or RF definitely make this talk more enjoyable, but are absolutely not necessary. It’s a dense topic that is highly applicable to those working on anything that touches the cellular network!

[liljemark]

Thanks, great entertaining way to finally learn how my cell phone works and what the backend looks like!

[ourcer]

What an absolutely amazing talk. One of the best I ever watch at Defcon

[pmthermos]

Not sure what the "War stories" were in this talk. 🤔

[MikeHarris]

Great talk!!! I learned alot. 1g was the standerd when i was born in 84 and saw 2g and 3g... my first phone was a verizon phone right after they went full 3g and for another decade plus, att would just start saying "we are now full 3g" lmao. And 2 years later grtting ready for 4g. But they just turned up speeds and took what was 3.5g and called it 4g lmao .... the carriers love to play with the names.

[vasylivanchukdoesntdeserveus]

Insane how telecom industry is basically 20% poorly secured towers and 80% unintelligible and conflicting acronyms; to think that they did it to themselves... is simply depressing. I mean, how hard can it be to give poetic names, maybe use allegories and analogies to your advantage? No, damn engineers always choose to make our lives harder for no reason.

[UXXV]

Not watched it all yet but that wiki xG map loooks odd. In the Uk 3G was a huge thing from around 2004 for a good number of years. Not the thin slice shown.

[jmz]

no link for the slides? github? anything? lol

[tissuepaper]

"person-in-the-middle" lmao.