Especially in recent years, numerous practical attacks and tools have been developed and released. The attack patterns and methods from the dynamic Internet world have finally caught up with the dinosaur of the Telecom world. So far, the industry has failed to demonstrate sufficient interest in developing proper responses. The changes so far have been superficial. Are they a sufficient response for what is to come? Has the telecom industry realized the true implications of having left the “walled garden”? The talk will leave the field of actual attacks behind in order to talk about what at least the author perceives as structural deficits in terms of IT security at operators and equipment vendors.
Harald Welte is communications security consultalt for more than a decade. He was co-author of tne netfilter/iptables packet filter in the Linux kernel and has since then been involved in a variety of Free Software based implementations of protocol stacks for RFID, GSM, GPRS, and TETRA. His main interest is to look at security of communication systems beyond the IP-centric mainstream. Besides his consulting work, he is the general manager of Sysmocom GmbH, providing custom tailored communications solutions to customers world-wide.