CAREER: Increasing Trust and Reducing Abuse in Telephone Networks
Abstract
Unsolicited phone calls, also known as robocalls, are one of the most pervasive and visible network security problems in the United States. Despite the sincere efforts of telephone providers, regulators, legislators, and technologists, there are virtually no consistently effective countermeasures. The project's novelties are in creating technical solutions that will empower regulators and providers to stop robocalling at scale. The project's broader significance and importance lie in dramatically improving the security and trustworthiness of the telephone network and, in so doing, restoring the telephone network as a useful communications medium. The goal of this work is to end the scourge of unsolicited phone calls by creating new techniques to detect abusive actors, restore trust in telephony by positively authenticating all phone calls, and prevent compromises of Internet voice infrastructure that would enable robocall abuse. The principal methodologies include developing threat intelligence, designing secure and privacy-preserving protocols, conducting Internet-scale measurement, and call audio analysis. This project is also developing public information campaigns, operator and regulator training, and telephone security content for network security courses.
Related Publications
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Characterizing Robocalls with Multiple Vantage Points
Sathvik Prasad, Aleksandr Nahapetyan, and Bradley Reaves
Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
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Jäger: Automated Telephone Call Traceback
David Adei, Varun Madathil, Sathvik Prasad, Bradley Reaves, and Alessandra Scafuro
Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
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Fixing Insecure Cellular System Information Broadcasts For Good
Alexander J. Ross, Bradley Reaves, Yomna Nasser, Gil Cukierman, and Roger Piqueras Jover
International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses
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On SMS Phishing Tactics and Infrastructure
Aleksandr Nahapetyan, Sathvik Prasad, Kevin Childs, Adam Oest, Yeganeh Ladwig, Alexandros Kapravelos, and Bradley Reaves
Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
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Diving into Robocall Content with SNORCall
Sathvik Prasad, Trevor Dunlap, Alexander Ross, and Bradley Reaves
Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium