I'll start by saying that I approve of security testing networks and the telco industry could do with more of it. I agree that security can be lax sometimes.
Sure, Telco SS7 networks and the equipment within them are just like any other in that there can be bugs that cause it to go down.
However, there are much higher barriers for entry to get an SS7 network link (c.f. a connection to the internet) and you're not going to keep it for very long if all you're doing is sending out SS7 messages crashing HLRs left, right and center.
I'm assuming that the packet he's talking about is a fuzzing attack and only affects a particular vendor's HLR and may have even been fixed by now. So if everyone in the world used the same vendor, all used the same software version and you had unfettered access to all of them, then yes, you could crash all of the HLRs in the world.
And really?... "World's HLR". Well I'm glad someone is nice enough to host a HLR for the world. And apparently crashing the "World's HLR" will stop one country's communication. Oh noes! Which one is it?! I hope it's not mine! And I'd be interested to see how crashing a HLR stops my landline and my internet connection from functioning.
You're wrong: it's extremely (and increasingly) easy to hack an operator in say africa or asia and then use their SS7 interconnection to send traffic.
Of course, DoS is the thermonuclear option. Most of the attacks are much more silent. Btw, before we released our IDS there even were no detection equipment available for operators.
The question I had is whether the femtocell claim is true - those are much easier to get access to. I'd like to believe that they're correspondingly more locked down but there is rather a long track record of telcos botching basic security design.
Sure, Telco SS7 networks and the equipment within them are just like any other in that there can be bugs that cause it to go down.
However, there are much higher barriers for entry to get an SS7 network link (c.f. a connection to the internet) and you're not going to keep it for very long if all you're doing is sending out SS7 messages crashing HLRs left, right and center.
I'm assuming that the packet he's talking about is a fuzzing attack and only affects a particular vendor's HLR and may have even been fixed by now. So if everyone in the world used the same vendor, all used the same software version and you had unfettered access to all of them, then yes, you could crash all of the HLRs in the world.
And really?... "World's HLR". Well I'm glad someone is nice enough to host a HLR for the world. And apparently crashing the "World's HLR" will stop one country's communication. Oh noes! Which one is it?! I hope it's not mine! And I'd be interested to see how crashing a HLR stops my landline and my internet connection from functioning.