TY - JOUR T1 - SS7 over IP: signaling interworking vulnerabilities JF - IEEE Network Y1 - 2006 A1 - Sengar, Hemant A1 - Ram Dantu A1 - Wijesekera, Duminda A1 - Jajodia, Sushil KW - anomalous signaling detection KW - circuit-switched heritage KW - Delay effects KW - Design engineering KW - IETF KW - Integrated circuit interconnections KW - Internet Engineering Task Force KW - Internet telephony KW - intersignaling KW - IP protocol KW - ISDN KW - packet-based telephone service KW - Protocols KW - public telephony KW - Routing KW - Signal detection KW - signal screening KW - signaling interworking KW - SIGTRAN KW - SS7 over IP KW - Switches KW - telecommunication signalling KW - two-way voice communication KW - Web and internet services AB -

Public telephony - the preferred choice for two-way voice communication over a long time - has enjoyed remarkable popularity for providing acceptable voice quality with negligible connection delays, perhaps due to its circuit-switched heritage. Recently, IP telephony, a packet-based telephone service that runs as an application over the IP protocol, has been gaining popularity. To provide seamless interconnectivity between these two competing services, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has designed a signaling interface commonly referred to as SIGTRAN. This seamless intersignaling provided by SIGTRAN facilitates any subscriber in one network to reach any other subscriber in the other network, passing through any heterogeneous maze of networks consisting of either of these. Unfortunately, the same intersignaling potentially can be exploited from either side to disrupt the services provided on the other side. We show how this can be done and propose a solution based on access control, signal screening, and detecting anomalous signaling. We argue that to be effective, the latter two should consider syntactic correctness, semantic validity of the signal content, and the appropriateness of a particular signal in the context of earlier exchanged messages

VL - 20 ER -