CAPEC-609: Cellular Traffic Intercept
Description
Cellular traffic for voice and data from mobile devices and retransmission devices can be intercepted via numerous methods. Malicious actors can deploy their own cellular tower equipment and intercept cellular traffic surreptitiously. Additionally, government agencies of adversaries and malicious actors can intercept cellular traffic via the telecommunications backbone over which mobile traffic is transmitted.
- Likelihood of attack
- Not rated by MITRE
- Typical severity
- Low
- Abstraction
- DetailedA low-level, detailed pattern, often for a particular technology.
Mechanism of attack: Collect and Analyze Information
Prerequisites
- None
Skills required
- MediumAdversaries can purchase hardware and software solutions, or create their own solutions, to capture/intercept cellular radio traffic. The cost of a basic Base Transceiver Station (BTS) to broadcast to local mobile cellular radios in mobile devices has dropped to very affordable costs. The ability of commercial cellular providers to monitor for rogue BTS stations is poor in many areas and it is...
Consequences
- Confidentiality
Read Data
Capture all cellular and RF traffic from mobile and retransmission devices. Move bulk traffic capture to storage area for cryptanalysis of encrypted traffic, and telemetry analysis of non-encrypted data. (packet headers, cellular power...
Mitigations
- Encryption of all data packets emanating from the smartphone to a retransmission device via two encrypted tunnels with Suite B cryptography, all the way to the VPN gateway at the datacenter.
Related weaknesses (CWE)
ATT&CK techniques (CAPEC taxonomy mapping)
Across MITRE's defensive frameworks
Linked through the 1 ATT&CK technique above.
Counter with D3FEND
Defensive techniques MITRE D3FEND maps to the same ATT&CK techniques.