Europe Mulls Open Sourcing TETRA Emergency Services' Encryption Algorithms
Jessica Lyons Hardcastle reports via The Register: The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) may open source the proprietary encryption algorithms used to secure emergency radio communications after a public backlash over security flaws found this summer. "The ETSI Technical Committee in charge of TETRA algorithms is discussing whether to make them public," Claire Boyer, a spokesperson for the European standards body, told The Register. The committee will discuss the issue at its next meeting on October 26, she said, adding: "If the consensus is not reached, it will go to a vote." TETRA is the Terrestrial Trunked Radio protocol, which is used in Europe, the UK, and other countries to secure radio communications used by government agencies, law enforcement, military and emergency services organizations. In July, a Netherlands security biz uncovered five vulnerabilities in TETRA, two deemed critical, that could allow criminals to decrypt communications, including in real-time, to inject messages, deanonymize users, or set the session key to zero for uplink interception. At the time ETSI downplayed the flaws, which it said had been fixed last October, and noted that "it's not aware of any active exploitation of operational networks." At the time ETSI downplayed the flaws, which it said had been fixed last October, and noted that "it's not aware of any active exploitation of operational networks." It did, however, face criticism from the security community over its response to the vulnerabilities -- and the proprietary nature of the encryption algorithms, which makes it more difficult for proper pentesting of the emergency network system. "This whole idea of secret encryption algorithms is crazy, old-fashioned stuff," said security author Kim Zetter who first reported the story. "It's very 1960s and 1970s and quaint. If you're not publishing [intentionally] weak algorithms, I don't know why you would keep the algorithms secret."
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