Feasibility of Signaling Storms in 3G/UMTS Operational Networks

Signaling storms are becoming prevalent in mobile networks due to the proliferation of smartphone applications and new network uses, such as machine-to-machine communication, which are designed without due consideration to the signaling overheads associated with the de/allocation of radio resources to User Equipment (UE). In this work, we conduct a set of experiments on a 3G operational mobile network to validate previous claims in literature that it is possible to significantly change the signaling behavior of a normal UE so that the UE has an adverse impact on the mobile network. Our early results show that it is possible to increase by 0.330 signaling messages/s the signaling rate of a normal 3G UE loaded with popular applications when it is not in active use by the owner. In addition, we explore the different factors which can either increase or decrease the effectiveness of signaling attacks on mobile networks.