Diffie-Hellman Picture Show: Key Exchange Stories from Commercial VoWiFi Deployments

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gegenhuber, Gabriel Karl, Holzbauer, Florian, Frenzel, Philipp, Weippl, Edgar, Dabrowski, Adrian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Gegenhuber, Gabriel Karl
Holzbauer, Florian
Frenzel, Philipp
Weippl, Edgar
Dabrowski, Adrian
author_facet Gegenhuber, Gabriel Karl
Holzbauer, Florian
Frenzel, Philipp
Weippl, Edgar
Dabrowski, Adrian
contents Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) uses a series of IPsec tunnels to deliver IP-based telephony from the subscriber's phone (User Equipment, UE) into the Mobile Network Operator's (MNO) core network via an Internet-facing endpoint, the Evolved Packet Data Gateway (ePDG). IPsec tunnels are set up in phases. The first phase negotiates the cryptographic algorithm and parameters and performs a key exchange via the Internet Key Exchange protocol, while the second phase (protected by the above-established encryption) performs the authentication. An insecure key exchange would jeopardize the later stages and the data's security and confidentiality. In this paper, we analyze the phase 1 settings and implementations as they are found in phones as well as in commercially deployed networks worldwide. On the UE side, we identified a recent 5G baseband chipset from a major manufacturer that allows for fallback to weak, unannounced modes and verified it experimentally. On the MNO side -- among others -- we identified 13 operators (totaling an estimated 140 million subscribers) on three continents that all use the same globally static set of ten private keys, serving them at random. Those not-so-private keys allow the decryption of the shared keys of every VoWiFi user of all those operators. All these operators deployed their core network from one common manufacturer.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_19556
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Diffie-Hellman Picture Show: Key Exchange Stories from Commercial VoWiFi Deployments
Gegenhuber, Gabriel Karl
Holzbauer, Florian
Frenzel, Philipp
Weippl, Edgar
Dabrowski, Adrian
Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) uses a series of IPsec tunnels to deliver IP-based telephony from the subscriber's phone (User Equipment, UE) into the Mobile Network Operator's (MNO) core network via an Internet-facing endpoint, the Evolved Packet Data Gateway (ePDG). IPsec tunnels are set up in phases. The first phase negotiates the cryptographic algorithm and parameters and performs a key exchange via the Internet Key Exchange protocol, while the second phase (protected by the above-established encryption) performs the authentication. An insecure key exchange would jeopardize the later stages and the data's security and confidentiality. In this paper, we analyze the phase 1 settings and implementations as they are found in phones as well as in commercially deployed networks worldwide. On the UE side, we identified a recent 5G baseband chipset from a major manufacturer that allows for fallback to weak, unannounced modes and verified it experimentally. On the MNO side -- among others -- we identified 13 operators (totaling an estimated 140 million subscribers) on three continents that all use the same globally static set of ten private keys, serving them at random. Those not-so-private keys allow the decryption of the shared keys of every VoWiFi user of all those operators. All these operators deployed their core network from one common manufacturer.
title Diffie-Hellman Picture Show: Key Exchange Stories from Commercial VoWiFi Deployments
topic Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.19556