[145576] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: GSM eavesdropping
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Mon Aug 2 11:32:37 2010
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 11:08:31 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
To: Bill Squier <groo@old-ones.com>
Cc: Cryptography <cryptography@metzdowd.com>
In-Reply-To: <9438EAC2-9830-43CF-9AF7-5501EB779A9A@old-ones.com>
On Mon, 2 Aug 2010 11:02:54 -0400 Bill Squier <groo@old-ones.com>
wrote:
> "...In his presentation at the Black Hat Conference, German GSM
> expert Karsten Nohl presented a tool he calls Kraken, which he
> claims can crack the A5/1 encryption used for cell phone calls
> within seconds."
>
> http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Quickly-decrypting-cell-phone-calls-1048850.html
This is a really important development. I'll quote a bit more of the
article so people can understand why:
In his presentation at the Black Hat Conference, German GSM expert
Karsten Nohl presented a tool he calls Kraken, which he claims can
crack the A5/1 encryption used for cell phone calls within
seconds. But first, you have to record the GSM call with a GSM
catcher, which you can build yourself based on a Universal Software
Programmable Radio (USRP), which costs just under $1500, and the
open source GNURadio software.
To crack the key, Kraken uses rainbow tables, which Nohl calculated
with ATI graphics processors (GPUs). During a live demonstration,
the tool cracked the key for a recorded phone call within about 30
seconds. Nohl then decoded the file with Airprobe and converted it
into an audio file using Toast.
"Today, recording and cracking GSM is as easy as attacking WiFi was
a few years ago", the security expert told The H's associates at
heise Security.
Perry
--
Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com
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