Altaf Shaik

Talk Title

White-Stingray: Bypassing stingray detectors

Abstract

IMSI catcher also knows as fake base station still prevail in 4G LTE networks and is a serious problem yet to be solved. Although tools such as cryptophone, etc are available in the market to combat IMSI catchers, they are considered very expensive. Instead, there are a few freely available tools to detect them, most of which are Android apps that warn users when they fall victim to a fake base station. In this talk, we evaluate the detection capabilities of popular Android apps by utilizing our custom-built White-Stingray tool. We demonstrate several 2G and 3G attacking techniques and show how an attacker can circumvent the detection methods adopted by these apps. Finally, we suggest best practices for a reliable IMSI catcher detection on mobile phones.

Bio

Altaf Shaik is a principal security researcher at Kaitiaki Labs and currently pursuing Ph.D. at the Technical University of Berlin. He is experienced in analyzing cellular network technologies from radio to networking protocol layers. His recent renowned research includes low-cost 4G IMSI catchers and security issues in several cellular baseband chipsets.