A REVIEW OF SECURITY ISSUES AND MITIGATION MEASURES IN GSM

Under European telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), GSM is named as “Global System for Mobile communication“. It is a globally accepted standard for digital cellular communication. Global System for Mobile (GSM) is a 2G-3G cellular standard developed to cater voice services and data delivery using digital modulation. Its aim was to replace the analog system. Today many users all over the world use GSM. GSM provides Tele-services i.e telecommunication services that enable voice communication, bearer services i.e Short Messaging Service (SMS), Supplementary Services i.e call related services. Security of GSM is crucial.With the greatest number of users worldwide GSM suffers from various security problems. This paper describes all the existing security mechanisms in GSM and security shortfalls and various attacks on GSM networks which include Authentication, Encryption, Equipment Identification and Subscriber Identity Confidentiality, Denial of service Attacks, Brute force attack, Replay Attack as well as the manifestation of network vulnerabilities including SMS attacks, encryption and signaling attacks and security measures to prevent GSM network from these attacks.