A privacy protecting UMTS AKA protocol providing perfect forward secrecy

Abstract

In UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System), a protocol called UMTS AKA (Authentication and Key Agreement) is used to securely authenticate an MS (Mobile Station). However, the UMTS AKA has several drawbacks such as network bandwidth consumption and synchronization problem. In this paper, we propose a new authentication protocol for UMTS that overcomes these problems. Moreover, our protocol enhances the security of the protocol by providing better privacy and also provides perfect forward secrecy. Furthermore, our protocol also provides mutual authentication between an MS and its HN (Home Network) and between an MS and the SN (Serving Network). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.