Introduction

Security is the utmost concern in the modern communication areas. The digital mobile technology is also facing this problem and GSM technology lacks the encryption in the information transfer department .The Short Message in GSM is not encrypted. Even the advance forms of GSM the GPRS is not up to the mark in data security. So in a digital mobile network, the subscriber is exposed to different types of attacks such as; Unauthorized identification, Observation, Offending the integrity of data, Detection of current location, Illegal use of the services, Observation of communication relations etc.

These are the serious security problems of the existing digital mobile technology which are solved by the UMTS and it gives subscriber and user a more confident opportunity to work in a secure way and gives subscriber a sense of security .UMTS actively combats prior mentioned threats and copes with them by following security procedures such as; Ciphering control information and user data, Authentication of the customer to the network, Integrity protection, Anonymity, Authentication of network to customer etc

UMTS Security Architecture

The UMTS security architecture is a set of security features based on three security principles. Authentication and Key Agreement, Integrity, Confidentiality.


Authentication

Previously, Authentication was just concerned with authentication of user to the network. In UMTS, Authentication of the network to the user has also been added which is also called one-pass authentication.

Integrity protection is used to secure that the content of signaling message between the user and the network has not been manipulated, even if message might not be confidential

Confidentiality is used to keep data secured from unauthorized trespassers .This is done by encryption of signaling data between the subscriber and the network and by referring to the subscriber by temporary identities (TMSI/P-TMSI) instead of using the global identity, IMSI.

Conclusion

So these features make the UMTS the best secure mode of data transfer in the existing digital mobile technology. Therefore with the changing world and changing thoughts mobile network preferences should be considered for the growing needs of security in telecom.