Achievement

Trainee Matt Tierney is working on a project related to secure mobile identities. The basic idea involves removing any dependance on the GSM security layer and building an application-level identity for applications that reside on a mobile device. The applications should be secure even if the underlying GSM communication layer is insecure. Matt has an initial design of this system and has an open-source version of the OpenBTS system up and running. The OpenBTS system has the power to intercept cellular communication and can make unmodified cellphones to associate with the OpenBTS base station without their knowledge. This opens a spectrum of man-in-the middle attacks for mobile devices which he aims to address using application-level secure identities.