CAPEC-617: Cellular Rogue Base Station
In this attack scenario, the attacker imitates a cellular base station with their own "rogue" base station equipment. Since cellular devices connect to whatever station has the strongest signal, the attacker can easily convince a targeted cellular device (e.g. the retransmission device) to talk to the rogue base station.
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Overview
CAPEC-617 (Cellular Rogue Base Station) is a detailed-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.
What the attacker needs
Prerequisites
- None
Skills required
- Low skill: This technique has been demonstrated by amateur hackers and commercial tools and open source projects are available to automate the attack.
Consequences
What a successful CAPEC-617 attack can achieve.
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Affects: Confidentiality
Intercept and control cellular data communications to/from mobile device.
How to mitigate it
Defenses that reduce the risk of CAPEC-617.
- Passively monitor cellular network connection for real-time threat detection and logging for manual review.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about CAPEC-617.
- What is CAPEC-617?
- In this attack scenario, the attacker imitates a cellular base station with their own "rogue" base station equipment. Since cellular devices connect to whatever station has the strongest signal, the attacker can easily convince a targeted cellular device (e.g. the retransmission device) to talk to the rogue base station.
- How do you prevent CAPEC-617?
- Passively monitor cellular network connection for real-time threat detection and logging for manual review.
- How severe is CAPEC-617?
- MITRE rates CAPEC-617 as Low severity.
References
Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.
Defend against CAPEC-617
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