Showing posts with label Vendor Comba Telecom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vendor Comba Telecom. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 October 2019

4G LTE Man In The Middle Attacks With A Hacked Small Cells


Here is an interesting talk from recent HITBSecConf by Xiaodong Zou. HITBSecConf or the Hack In The Box Security Conference is an annual must attend event in the calendars of security researchers and professionals around the world. Held annually in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Amsterdam in The Netherlands, HITBSecConf is a platform for the discussion and dissemination of next generation computer security issues.

From the talk narrative:

Femtocells offer a user the ability to have a small base station located within their house or other area. These small base stations provide access to the core telecom network where poor reception from an eNodeB would normally prevent consistent coverage. Femtocells has been standardized in LTE since release 8, and is referred as Home eNodeB, or HeNB. HeNBs are mandated to have an IPsec connection back to a security gateway (SeGW) to protect traffic flowing into and out of a Mobile Network Operator (MNO)’s core network.

If the HeNB is within the physical possession of an attacker, this provides unlimited time to identify a flaw on the HeNB. A compromised HeNB can be used in a manner similar to a rogue base station, but will also provide the attacker access to clear text traffic before it is sent back to the core network. There are more than ten different types of HeNBs deployed in China. Ericsson ENC-nRBS01B40 is one of them – a TD-LTE base station working on band B40.

In this talk, we will cover:

1.) How to root a 4G LTE femtocell.
2.) How to make the femtocell portable.
3.) How to perform man-in-the-middle attack with the femtocell.
4.) Show the prototype of Hacking Box of S1 Interface (HBoS)

Slides and video embedded below:






Related Posts:

Wednesday, 8 November 2017

Vodafone Portugal's “streetlamp”


Vodafone Portugal, in partnership with Drivetel, Omniflow and Amop is deploying its own “streetlamp” to improve coverage and capacity in certain areas while at the same time making sure the antennas blend in with the surroundings.



From Linkedin (via Cliff Velosa):

In Portugal Vodafone is committed on reducing visual impact on outdoor (rural and urban) coverage and made sure that the energy resource consumption is engage to a better and efficient way.

Comba Telecom has played an important role together with Drivetel S.A to the construction of a clean and unique system with a camouflaged Tri-Sector antenna that supports LTE1800 and WCDMA coverage and fits just perfectly to the rest of the environment.


A smart street light 100% self-powered by Wind and Solar energy and supported by a local Portuguese Company called OmniFlow.

It’s a completely integrated solution that blends into the most modern urban Smart Cities and to the wildest landscape. The generated energy with natural resources can contribuite to Vodafone's Pico/Micro/Small cell NB/eNB Base stations energy supply that is environmental friendly and contributes to the local population not only on mobile coverage and services but also served as public lights during the night.

The infrastructure is all underground with only the antennas on the top.

In another Linkedin post (via Cliff Velosa):

One of Portugal’s sea viewpoint – Santa Cruz beach, the local municipality together with Vodafone agreed on a efficient way to supply mobile radio coverage and capacity on Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G with an independent lighting system which produces enough electricity for the lighting system throughout the night by using natural resources (wind and sun), saving extra costs on the municipality, the tax payers will thank them in the long term.

A local Portuguese company did the design of the base bench foundation in concrete that meets the concerns of vandal resistance, life cycle and with reserved space to add all the RF RRU's/BBU's inside a the cabinet and with a spot around the tower to sit and navigate on Vodafone’s high speed broadband. No more ugly towers with massive antennas, Comba's Camouflaged 3 Cluster antenna did just the trick to reduce that impact.

This new “streetlamp” reduces the time to setup the tower and offering radio service to Vodafone's customers in matter of hours knowing that everything is setup by Drivetel in advance before transporting the system to the field.

All picture sources: Cliff Velosa

Further Reading: