New Vulnerabilities in Cellular Communications

Dr. Hao Chen and graduate students Radmilo Racic and Denys Ma are researching ways to ensure the safety and reliability of cellular data services.

photo credit: Patty Graves

Computer Science Professor Hao Chen and first year graduate students Denys Ma and Radmilo Racic have discovered new, serious vulnerabilities in cellular data services.

The vulnerability of our increasingly complex and multi-purpose cellular devices lies in their connection to the Internet, Professor Hao explained. He predicts that hackers intent on disabling cellular communications will strike at the most vulnerable point - the battery power that makes devices portable.

It is rare for first year graduate students like Radmilo Racic and Denys Ma to present research at a prestigious conference.

photo credit: Patty Graves

“While the power of computer chips installed in electronic devices doubles every 18 months, the capacity of the batteries powering these devices does not,” Hao said. Batteries represent a bottleneck in the technical revolution that allows us to connect wirelessly to and communicate via the Internet through cellular communications.

Hackers, the research team predicts, can disable cell phones and PDAs by sending packets of information, hidden among the many other packets of data received, instructing these devices to stay awake. There currently is no way to detect these digital wolves in sheep's clothing. Such attacks would be simple, silent and undetectable, draining the battery power of cell phones and PDAs before the end of the business day.

Hao Chen and his students presented their findings in Baltimore in August, 2006 at IEEE SecureComm 2006, a highly regarded conference in network security and privacy research. His team intends to develop ways to reliably and quickly detect the difference between attack packets and the normal packets of information feeding cellular devices. At the same time, they will look for other vulnerabilities in high-speed cellular services.