A Novel Security Algorithm for Universal Mobile Telecommunication System

The user authentication process is an important task in mobile networks. With the development of new standard Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), the security weaknesses of previous standards are removed. However one security weakness has been found by researchers in UMTS, which is the sending of user's International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) in plain text over the air interface during authentication process. In order to address this issue, a novel security algorithm named as Airam is presented in this research work. Airam algorithm uses hybrid cryptography technique to resolve the problem of sending user's IMSI is plain text over the air interface during authentication process. Simulation results show that the proposed Airam algorithm also provides adequate security against replay and imposition attacks.