Apple has been granted a patent (number 11503472 ) for “fake base station detection.” It involves systems and techniques on its devices for analyzing signaling messages from a base station and determining whether the base station may be a fake base station sending sham messages.

About the patent

In the patent Apple notes that security and privacy of a user of a wireless device may be attacked by a malicious party. One class of attacks is based on the malicious party placing a piece of radio equipment out in the public where a legitimate mobile network operator (MNO) is providing services. 

The equipment placed or in the control of the malicious party transmits signals which appear to be legitimate base station signals. Such a piece of radio equipment is referred to herein as a fake base station, and the malicious party is referred to as a faking operator. A wireless device, also called a user equipment (UE), may place some trust in the signals from the fake base station and proceed to attempt to establish or maintain communications using the fake base station. 

The fake base station may send a sham message to the wireless device. Apple says that serious problems can occur if a user of the wireless device mistakenly understands the sham message as being a genuine message routed via a legitimate MNO. The company wants to protect its users from such threats.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “A mobile device collects received information and processes it. In some instances, the mobile device detects, based on the collected information, that a base station is likely not legitimate, i.e., it is likely a fake base station, and the mobile device bars communication with the base station for a time. In some embodiments, the mobile device determines, based on the received information, that the base station is a genuine base station. When the mobile device determines that the base station is a genuine base station or the mobile device does not determine that it is likely the base station is a fake base station, the mobile device allows or continues communication with the base station.”



Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today