Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Short Message Service (SMS) has grown in popularity over the years and it has become a common way of communication. SMS is usually used to transport unclassified information, but with the rise of mobile commerce it has become a popular tool for transmitting sensitive information between the business and its clients. By default SMS does not guarantee confidentiality and integrity to the message content. Therefore SMS is not totally secure and reliable. The Short Messaging Service (SMS) is global wireless service that is used to send and receive the messages over Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM).There is no built –in procedure to authenticate and offer security for text transmitted over GSM network. The reason behind it is most of the applications for mobile devices are designed and developed without taking security into consideration. This paper describes all the existing security mechanisms in SMS and security shortfalls and various attacks on GSM networks which include Authentication, Encryption, Equipment Identification and Subscriber Identity Confidentiality, Denial of service Attacks, Brute force attack, Replay Attack as well as the manifestation of network vulnerabilities including SMS attacks, encryption attacks and security measures to prevent GSM network from these attacks.