Rooting SIM cards

Name: Rooting SIM cards
Uploaded: 2013-11-20
Duration: 58 min 32 s
Channel: Karsten Nohl
Description: A deep technical presentation on SIM card security architectures. Nohl explains how weak DES/3DES configurations in SIM applets allow remote attackers to crack keys over OTA SMS, execute arbitrary code on the SIM OS, and compromise the subscriber profile.

Speaker Karsten NohlEvent Black Hat USA 2013Broadcast 2013-11-20Duration 59m

SIGNAL LIVE59M

INTEL TIMELINE // 6 CHAPTERS

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KEY CONCEPTS MAP // DISCOVERY TIMESTAMPS 1 TOPICS IDENTIFIED

Student Briefing Notes

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🎯 Core Key Takeaways

Understand core sim-security signaling vulnerability mechanisms
Identify protocol weakness patterns in sim card hacking, sim applet auditing, ghost sim attack
Analyze real-world SIGINT exploitation vectors and mitigation strategies

🛠️ Practical Lab & Hands-On Guidance

Apply packet filtering in Wireshark for sim-security traffic, verify firewall rules at signaling boundaries, and audit protocol parameter bounds.

📖 Briefing Coverage Scope

A deep technical presentation on SIM card security architectures. Nohl explains how weak DES/3DES configurations in SIM applets allow remote attackers to crack keys over OTA SMS, execute arbitrary code on the SIM OS, and compromise the subscriber profile.

STUDY BRIEFING DOSSIER EXPORTER EXPORT COMPLETE LAB NOTES & TIMESTAMPS FOR NOTION / OBSIDIAN

5G SBA NRF Service Discovery & OAuth2 Token Abuse

5G-SBA

Call flow illustrating how an unauthenticated Network Function (Rogue NF Consumer) queries the NRF for discovery and retrieves access tokens without adequate TLS mutual auth or token scoping.

Entity 01Rogue NF Consumer (AMF)

Entity 02NRF (Discovery & Auth)

Entity 03Target NF Producer (UDM)

1. GET /nnrf-disc/v1/nf-instances?target-nf-type=UDMREQUEST

Rogue NF Consumer (AMF) ➔ NRF (Discovery & Auth)

2. 200 OK (UDM Endpoint URI & Supported Services)RESPONSE

NRF (Discovery & Auth) ➔ Rogue NF Consumer (AMF)

3. POST /oauth2/token (grant_type=client_credentials, scope=nudm-sdm)EXPLOIT

Rogue NF Consumer (AMF) ➔ NRF (Discovery & Auth)

4. 200 OK (Access Token: Bearer eyJhbGciOi...)RESPONSE

NRF (Discovery & Auth) ➔ Rogue NF Consumer (AMF)

5. GET /nudm-sdm/v1/imsi-208950000000001/am-dataEXPLOIT

Rogue NF Consumer (AMF) ➔ Target NF Producer (UDM)

6. 200 OK (Subscriber Subscription Data & Keys)RESPONSE

Target NF Producer (UDM) ➔ Rogue NF Consumer (AMF)

🔍 PROTOCOL MESSAGE PARAMETERSStep 1 of 6

Rogue NF queries NRF discovery endpoint to enumerate registered UDM instances in PLMN.

Technical Term & Subtitle Translator

Inspect Technical Acronym:

5G-SBA — 5G Service Based Architecture

5G Core

🇺🇸 English

Core network architecture in 5G Standalone (SA) where Network Functions (AMF, SMF, NRF, UDM) communicate via HTTP/2 REST APIs with OAuth2 authentication.

⚠️ Security Vectors & Exploitation Note:

Vulnerable to NRF token abuse, unauthorized REST discovery, and API gateway parameter tampering.

SIM & eSIM Security sim card hacking sim applet auditing ghost sim attack

About this signal

Technical Intelligence

Briefing FAQs

How are SIM cards hacked remotely over the air?

Attackers exploit weak cryptographic signatures (like single DES) in SIM OTA SMS messages. By obtaining a signed error code, cracking the key, and sending signed OTA packages, the attacker can force the SIM OS to run arbitrary applets.

What is the threat of a hacked SIM card?

A compromised SIM card has access to the device's voice, data, and SMS streams, can track the location of the device, send unauthorized messages, and clone identity profiles.

INTELLIGENCE TRANSCRIPT & TIMESTAMPS

6 LOGS

Karsten Nohl: SIM cards are tiny computers running Java Card OS, trusted by billions as tamper-resistant hardware security modules.

The SIM architecture isolates cellular secrets from the main smartphone application processor using Java Card virtual machine sandboxing.

Many carriers still use legacy single DES for encrypting Over-The-Air (OTA) SMS commands. Sending a binary SMS with a deliberately invalid signature prompts the SIM to return an error response signed with its private DES key.

Rainbow tables allow us to crack the 56-bit DES key in under two minutes. Once cracked, we forge valid cryptographic signatures and deploy malicious Java Card applets over the air.

The rogue applet escapes the sandbox, accessing call history, sending premium SMS without user knowledge, and extracting master encryption keys (Ki).

Remediating this requires carriers to revoke 56-bit DES cards immediately, transition to AES-128 OTA keys, and deploy SMS-C firewalls that filter binary OTA packets.