Grey Routing

Grey routing is the unauthorised termination of voice or SMS traffic via routes that bypass official interconnect agreements, often abusing roaming or wholesale arrangements to deliver traffic at lower cost. It deprives the destination operator of expected termination fees and degrades CLI integrity. Detection relies on test-call generators and traffic-pattern analytics on the SMSC and gateway MSC.

Categories: Radio Access NetworkCore NetworkRoaming and Interconnect

Grey Routing in context

The radio access network is where mobile devices attach to the operator's infrastructure. Attacks in this layer include IMSI catching, rogue base stations and downgrade attacks; defenses rest on mutual authentication, integrity-protected signaling and Open RAN supply-chain hygiene.

The mobile core carries subscriber sessions, mobility and policy. In 4G it is the EPC (MME, HSS, S/PGW); in 5G it is the Service-Based Architecture with AMF, SMF, UPF, AUSF, UDM and the NRF.

To place Grey Routing in the wider telecom-security picture, review AUSF, Red Team, SUCI, Threat Intelligence, 5G and 5G SA — each entry cross-references back to this page so you can walk the topic in either direction.

Related terms

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