2019-03-19

GSMK presents insights gained from the industry’s largest number of operator-commissioned SS7 penetration tests at TROOPERS’ Telco Security Day 2019

Heidelberg, Germany – At Telco Security Day 2019, an industry gathering bringing together researchers, vendors and practitioners from the telecommunications and mobile security field, GSMK presented insights gained from the industry’s largest number of SS7 pen tests conducted for mobile network operators in a great number of countries.

A key conclusion from the pen tests, which covered signaling firewalls from all major vendors, is that while signaling firewalls do make it harder to execute SS7-based attacks, many of their protection mechanisms can be circumvented because they are not properly implemented and configured: All third-party firewalls scrutinized in the pen tests could be successfully bypassed in some way or another. GSMK’s Heidelberg talk presented concrete examples of how messages can be constructed to bypass signaling firewalls from different vendors, the nature of the vulnerabilities that led to these successful bypasses, why it can be difficult to fix the resulting issues, and how signaling firewalls need to be implemented to make them more secure and effective.

If you are a mobile network operator and were unable to make it to Telco Security Day, contact us to discuss the insights presented in Heidelberg.