As a team of European experts found out, GEA / 1 allows you to intercept conversations.
The GEA / 1 cryptographic algorithm used in GPRS phones in the 1990s has proven less reliable than previously thought. As a team of European experts found out, GEA / 1 allows you to intercept conversations.
The GEA / 1 algorithm was introduced by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in 1998. Its purpose was to provide 64-bit encryption for traffic such as emails or content downloaded from the Internet. Nevertheless, as established by specialists from the Ruhr University in Bochum, together with colleagues from France and Norway, in fact, GEA / 1 provides 40-bit encryption. Moreover, the way the cryptographic keys are split makes it relatively easy to hack the system.
"According to our experimental analysis, random key parameters are about as likely as guessing six numbers in a German lottery twice in a row," said one of the study leaders, Professor Christof Beierl.
There is an obvious explanation for this. In the late 1990s, strong encryption still had an undefined legal status, and many countries banned the export of such technology. The GEA / 1 standard does not say this, but, for example, in France at that time there was a ban on encryption exceeding 40 bits.
After a year later, the rules governing encryption were relaxed, ETSI released the GEA / 2 algorithm, and support for GEA / 1 was officially discontinued in 2013. According to the researchers, the second generation GEA algorithm was more reliable than the first one. The industry is now dominated by the more advanced GEA / 3 system. There is an even more powerful GEA / 4 algorithm, although it is currently not a priority. Be that as it may, the GPRS decoder for OsmocomBB called gprsdecode has considered GEA / 2 vulnerable for some time, just like GEA / 1, and GEA / 3 partially vulnerable.
It is important to note that GEA / 1 is still used as a backup algorithm in some modern Android smartphones (eg Huawei P9 lite) and iPhones (iPhone XR). The university team insists on the complete removal of GEA / 1 and GEA / 2 from modern smartphones.
The GEA / 1 cryptographic algorithm used in GPRS phones in the 1990s has proven less reliable than previously thought. As a team of European experts found out, GEA / 1 allows you to intercept conversations.
The GEA / 1 algorithm was introduced by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in 1998. Its purpose was to provide 64-bit encryption for traffic such as emails or content downloaded from the Internet. Nevertheless, as established by specialists from the Ruhr University in Bochum, together with colleagues from France and Norway, in fact, GEA / 1 provides 40-bit encryption. Moreover, the way the cryptographic keys are split makes it relatively easy to hack the system.
"According to our experimental analysis, random key parameters are about as likely as guessing six numbers in a German lottery twice in a row," said one of the study leaders, Professor Christof Beierl.
There is an obvious explanation for this. In the late 1990s, strong encryption still had an undefined legal status, and many countries banned the export of such technology. The GEA / 1 standard does not say this, but, for example, in France at that time there was a ban on encryption exceeding 40 bits.
After a year later, the rules governing encryption were relaxed, ETSI released the GEA / 2 algorithm, and support for GEA / 1 was officially discontinued in 2013. According to the researchers, the second generation GEA algorithm was more reliable than the first one. The industry is now dominated by the more advanced GEA / 3 system. There is an even more powerful GEA / 4 algorithm, although it is currently not a priority. Be that as it may, the GPRS decoder for OsmocomBB called gprsdecode has considered GEA / 2 vulnerable for some time, just like GEA / 1, and GEA / 3 partially vulnerable.
It is important to note that GEA / 1 is still used as a backup algorithm in some modern Android smartphones (eg Huawei P9 lite) and iPhones (iPhone XR). The university team insists on the complete removal of GEA / 1 and GEA / 2 from modern smartphones.
