Wireless Networks And Security – A Brief Discussion On LTE

Comparison of Existing Cellular Network

The wireless network can be defined as the significant computer network, which utilizes the wireless data connection within any two network nodes [3]. This wireless network is the specific methodology, by which the several telecommunication networks as well as business installations are avoiding the expensive process to introduce or install cables within any building or the connection within the several equipment locations. These wireless telecommunication networks could be easily implemented as well as administered with the help of radio communication.

The most significant examples of the wireless networks are cell phone network, wireless sensor network, WLAN or wireless local area networks, LTE or the long term evolutions, satellite communication network and many more [8]. The following report will be outlining a brief discussion on the wireless network and security properly. The specific comparison between the existing cellular networks, the architecture of LTE or LTE A, the evaluation of the several attacks on this network and the proper identification and mitigation of such attacks will be provided in this report.

Discussion 

1. Comparison of Existing Cellular Network

                There are some of the most popular and significant cellular networks in the wireless network field [11]. Amongst them, the basic examples are LTE, WiMax or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, the GSM or the globalized system for all mobile communications, Wi-Fi or wireless fidelity and many others. The comparison of these popular examples is given below:

Serial Number	Key Features	LTE/ LTE A	WiMax	GSM	Wireless Fidelity
a)	Communication Spectrum	The significant communication spectrum of the Long term Evolution network has various frequency allocations of LTE frequency bands [6]. The recent LTE bands are between 1 and 22 for the paired spectrum, and LTE bands are between 33 and 41 for the unpaired spectrum.	The significant communication spectrum of the WiMax cellular network are divided into 11 parts, which are ELF, SLF, ULF, VLF, LF, MF, HF, VHF, UHF, SHF and EHF [1]. The respective frequencies are 3Hz till 30Hz, 30Hz till 300Hz, 300Hz till 3000Hz, 3KHz till 30KHz, 30KHz till 300KHz, 300KHz till 3000KHz, 3MHz till 30MHz, 30MHz till 300MHz, 300MHz till 3000MHz, 3GHz till 30GHz, 30GHz till 300GHz respectively [5].	The communication spectrum of GSM network is divided into 14 frequency bands, which starts from 380MHz to 1900MHz [10].	The communication spectrum of wireless fidelity is from 2.4GHz to 5GHz.
b)	Modulation Techniques	The modulation techniques of LTE are QPSK, 64QAM and 16QAM [9].	The modulation techniques of WiMax are BPSK, QPSK, 64QAM and 16QAM.	The modulation technique of GSM is GMSK.	The modulation techniques of Wi-Fi are CCK and QPSK.
c)	Medium Access Control Mechanism	The MAC mechanism of LTE is downlink through put of one single LTE cell that provides the wide band CQI feedback scheme.	The MAC mechanism of WiMax is that it covers areas at high transmission speed and hence giving rise to 802.16x standards [2].	The MAC mechanism of GSM is that it is designed for maximization of using the costly spectrum. The protocols here are PDCP and RLC.	The MAC mechanism of Wi-Fi is dependent on throughput, number of nodes, battery power consumption and many others [4].
d)	Network Speed and Bandwidth Utilization	The speed of LTE is around 50Mbps and the bandwidth utilization of this network is that the radio planning pertains for the maximum acceptable LTE radio interface load [1].	The speed of WiMax is around 40 Mbps and the bandwidth is shared within several terminals.	The speed of GSM is not more than 7.2 Mb per second and the bandwidth is divided to 124 carrier frequencies.	The speed of the Wi-Fi network is different in theoretical and actual [7]. The theoretical speed starts from 11Mbps to 600Mbps and the actual speed starts from 5.5Mbps to 100Mbps. These are different for different protocols.
e)	Security Techniques and Risks	There are some of the major security risks in LTE and amongst them the most dangerous is the man-in-the-middle attack. For this risk, the technique of encryption is being implemented.	The major risks of WiMax are the denial of service attack and man-in-the-middle attack and the security techniques used by this network are authentication and encryption.	The security risks of GSM are DoS attacks and network manipulation. They have used authentication in their network [8].	The security risks of Wi-Fi network are war driving and cracking attacks. The security techniques for these attacks are encryption and passwords.

Architecture of LTE/ LTE A

                The architecture of this LTE or the LTE A is much simpler than any other network. There are three major components of this particular network and these are the significant user equipment or the UE, the respective evolved packet cores or the EPC as well as evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access networks or the E-UTRAN [7]. The internal architecture of the UE for this LTE comprises of the three important modules, viz. Mobile Terminations or MT for handling the communication function, the Terminal Equipment or TE for the purpose of terminating the data stream and the Universal Integrated Circuit Cards or the UICC for running the applications called the USIM or Universal Subscriber Identity Module.

                The distinct architecture of the E-UTRAN is given below: 

The second part is the EPC or the Evolved Packet Core, which comprises of few components of EIR or Equipment Identity Register, ETWS or Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System and finally PCRF or Policy Control and Charging Rules Function [3].

Architecture of LTE

The above figure clearly demonstrates the entire architecture of Evolved Packet Core or EPC of the LTE or LTE A.

3. Evaluation of LTE/ LTE A Attacks on Access and Core Networks

                There are some of the major and the most significant attacks on the accessing and the core networks of Long Term Evolution and its advanced version [12]. The major attacks are given below:

1. i) DNS Redirection Attack: This is considered as one of the major and the most nefarious attack of LTE on access as well as core networks. The DNS hijacking is the malicious attack that is responsible for redirecting the queries of any specific authenticated user to the DNS or domain name server by simply overriding his computer system’s TCP or IP protocols [5].
2. ii) Man in the Middle Attacks: The second popular and significant vulnerable LTE or LTE A attack on the access or core networks is the main in the middle attack. An intruder or hacker sits in between the network and the authenticated user and then secretly relays or even possibly changes the distinct communication within the two authorized parties, who eventually believe that they are directly sending messages or communicating with each other [10]. The intruder could even change r alter the message for his own benefit and hence the integrity as well as the confidentiality of that sensitive message is being lost. The most vital example of this man in the middle attack is the eavesdropping.

                iii) Network Manipulation: Another significant and vulnerable LTE attack on the access networks and core networks is the network manipulation [9]. It is again extremely common for this type of wireless networks, where the perpetrator manipulates the network and the data is received by him by losing the confidentiality and integrity.

1. iv) Denial of Service Attacks: This type of attack clearly states that the perpetrator is seeking into the machine and thus denying any type of access to the machine. The user gets no idea of these types of attacks and his network is being hacked.
2. 4. Identification and Analysis of High Criticality Attack and Countermeasures for this Attack

                Amongst the above mentioned discussed attacks of LTE or LTE-A, the attack with the highest criticality is the DNS Redirection Attack. It is the core practice to subvert the resolution of the Domain Name Servers or the DNS queries [4]. The TCP or IP configuration is overridden by the attack in this attack and the DNS servers come under the management of that attacker. The trusted DNS server is being eventually modified so that this server is not complied with the respective internet standards.

                The significant countermeasures for dealing with the DNS Redirection Attack in LTE network is by selecting a domain registrar, which offers multifactor authentication for locking DNS settings and enhancing the cyber security for the cache positioning [11].

Conclusion

                Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the wireless networks are specific computer networks, which are eventually linked with the help of cables of some kind. The proper utilization of this wireless network helps to enable the organizations in avoiding the costly procedure to install cables. One of the most popular and important example of the wireless network is LTE or long term evolution or LTE A or long term evolution advanced. These types of wireless networks are responsible for providing advanced services with the high bandwidths, low latency and better efficiency of spectrum.

However, these types of wireless networks are extremely vulnerable to the several risks or security threats and thus these security threats are to be mitigated as soon as possible. The above report has clearly demonstrated a brief discussion on the LTE or long term evolution in respect to the other wireless networks. A significant comparison is done in terms of communication spectrum, MAC mechanism and many others. Moreover, the entire architecture of this particular wireless network is also provided here with the probable attacks and their countermeasures.

References

[1] L. He, Z. Yan and M. Atiquzzaman, “LTE/LTE-A Network Security Data Collection and Analysis for Security Measurement: A Survey,” in IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 4220-4242, 2018.

[2] Rangan, Sundeep, Theodore S. Rappaport, and Elza Erkip. “Millimeter-wave cellular wireless networks: Potentials and challenges.” Proceedings of the IEEE 102, no. 3 (2014): 366-385.

[3] Zeng, Yuanyuan, Kai Xiang, Deshi Li, and Athanasios V. Vasilakos. “Directional routing and scheduling for green vehicular delay tolerant networks.” Wireless networks 19, no. 2 (2013): 161-173.

[4] Lu, Xiao, Ping Wang, Dusit Niyato, Dong In Kim, and Zhu Han. “Wireless networks with RF energy harvesting: A contemporary survey.” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 17, no. 2 (2015): 757-789.

[5] Hossain, Ekram, Mehdi Rasti, Hina Tabassum, and Amr Abdelnasser. “Evolution toward 5G multi-tier cellular wireless networks: An interference management perspective.” IEEE Wireless Communications 21, no. 3 (2014): 118-127.

[6] Dahlman, Erik, Stefan Parkvall, and Johan Skold. 4G: LTE/LTE-advanced for mobile broadband. Academic press, 2013.

[7] Capozzi, Francesco, Giuseppe Piro, Luigi Alfredo Grieco, Gennaro Boggia, and Pietro Camarda. “Downlink packet scheduling in LTE cellular networks: Key design issues and a survey.” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 15, no. 2 (2013): 678-700.

[8] Nakamura, Takehiro, Satoshi Nagata, Anass Benjebbour, Yoshihisa Kishiyama, Tang Hai, Shen Xiaodong, Yang Ning, and Li Nan. “Trends in small cell enhancements in LTE advanced.” IEEE Communications Magazine 51, no. 2 (2013): 98-105.

[9] Doumi, Tewfik, Mike F. Dolan, Said Tatesh, Alessio Casati, George Tsirtsis, Kiran Anchan, and Dino Flore. “LTE for public safety networks.” IEEE Communications Magazine 51, no. 2 (2013): 106-112.

[10] Araniti, Giuseppe, Claudia Campolo, Massimo Condoluci, Antonio Iera, and Antonella Molinaro. “LTE for vehicular networking: a survey.” IEEE communications magazine 51, no. 5 (2013): 148-157.

[11] Ding, Zhiguo, Yuanwei Liu, Jinho Choi, Qi Sun, Maged Elkashlan, I. Chih-Lin, and H. Vincent Poor. “Application of non-orthogonal multiple access in LTE and 5G networks.” IEEE Communications Magazine 55, no. 2 (2017): 185-191.

[12] Vakilian, Vida, Thorsten Wild, Frank Schaich, Stephan ten Brink, and Jean-Francois Frigon. “Universal-filtered multi-carrier technique for wireless systems beyond LTE.” In Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps), 2013 IEEE, pp. 223-228. IEEE, 2013.