Prevention of Desynchronization Attack in 4G LTE Networks Using Double Authentication Scheme

The core objective of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is to provide a secured communication and high data rate for 4G users. Even though 4G network provides security, there are loopholes which lead to several attacks in 4G network. One such attack is desynchronization attack in 3GPP handover key management. This paper deliberates the vulnerability of desynchronization attack that occurs when source acts as rogue base station in 3GPP. In addition, it discusses how this attack jeopardizes the communication in 4G network and subsequently proposes a new scheme to overcome this attack. In the proposed scheme, the target generates its own key rather than using the key generated by source node for future communication with target to achieve a secure communication between the source and target base station in 4G LTE. The proposed scheme is simulated using network simulator 3 (NS-3). The numerical analysis shows that the proposed scheme achieves a significant reduction in the communication cost for key generation and authentication in LTE.