OIC-CERT JOURNAL OF CYBER SECURITY
ISSN 2636-9680 | eISSN 2682-9266

Identity-Division Multiplexing Technique for Enhancing Privacy of Paging Procedure in LTE

Abstract:

Despite efforts have been made by Long Term Evolution (LTE) toward enhancing privacy preserving capabilities, LTE is still vulnerable to privacy attacks. This paper evaluates the privacy issues of paging procedure in LTE and suggests a solution for enhancing the privacy of paging procedure in LTE. The solution introduces the Identity-Division Multiplexing (IDM) technique, in which the total sequence of temporary mobile subscriber identifiers M-TMSIs (232 unique M-TMSI identities) is divided into a series of overlapping M-TMSIs ranges, each of which is allocated to one or more user equipment (UE). The solution guarantees the use of frequently changing unrelated TMSIs for identification; and thus, providing unlinkability and untraceability of the user. The solution provides an effective identity management that protects privacy of LTE users during paging process. The solution is formally verified using proVerif and proved to protect user privacy adequately.

Author(s) with Affiliation:

Abdulrahman Muthana & Abdulraqeb Al-Samei
Smart Security Solutions
Sana’a, Yemen