Denial of Service (DoS)

Denial of Service (DoS) in context

Signaling protocols carry the control-plane instructions that set up calls, register subscribers, hand over sessions and route SMS. SS7, Diameter, GTP-C and SIP are the four dominant families, and interconnect exposure of any of them is treated by GSMA FS.11 / FS.19 / FS.20 as a top-tier telecom risk.

Telecom threats range from opportunistic SMS phishing and SIM swap to nation-state grade location tracking and lawful-interception abuse. The common thread is that most attacks exploit the inherited trust model of legacy signaling. SS7 and Diameter were designed for a closed operator community that no longer exists.

To place Denial of Service (DoS) in the wider telecom-security picture, review DDoS, Attack Surface Mapping, Indicators of Compromise (Telecom IoCs), Telecom Forensics, MTSI and Charging System.

Related terms

• DDoS
• Attack Surface Mapping
• Indicators of Compromise (Telecom IoCs)
• Telecom Forensics
• MTSI
• Charging System
• Cipher Downgrade Attack
• Incident Response

Related topic hubs

• Signaling Firewall Unified SS7/Diameter/GTP/SMS signaling firewall framework.
• Diameter Attacks S6a IDR/PUR/CLR abuse, subscriber tracking, LTE signaling attacks.
• Diameter Security 4G/LTE Diameter threats across IPX/roaming and DEA defenses.
• LTE Security Training Training on 4G/LTE core, Diameter, NAS and RRC security.

More from the TelcoSec Glossary

Browse the full TelcoSec Glossary, the Ultimate Guide to Mobile Network Security, or the P1 Arsenal of telecom-security tools.