Wireless network security architecture

Cellular bandits have exploited security limitations of analog technology from its infancy. First-generation analog system security has been primarily left up to system manufacturers and service providers. With the advent of digital technology (second generation [2G]), the standards organizations aggressively developed techniques and cryptographic methods to protect the service provider from fraudulent use of network resources and to provide user privacy. Third-generation (3G) digital wireless systems offer significant improvement of security techniques that address all known 2G deficiencies and allow strong service protection for many years to come. This paper discusses in detail the wireless security architecture evolution (voice and data) with special emphasis on the latest standards developed for 3G wireless systems, including 2G13G interoperability issues. Both the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project [3GPP]) and CDMA2000* (developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 [3GPP2]) architectures are addressed. (C) 2002 Lucent Technologies Inc.