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master_thesis/Chapters/Introduction.tex
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% !TeX root = ../Thesis.tex
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\chapter{Introduction}\label{ch:introduction}
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\glsresetall % Resets all acronyms to not used
% todays society is connected
% all devices i.e Smartphones, iot devices, vehicles are connected and often have an SIM -> connect to cellular networks
% The first phones supporting esims released in 2016 with the iphone that supports esim being released in 2018
% in recent years: esims became more and more popular in such applications
% advantages: no need to switch out hardware when getting a new phone contract, easier to switch out the profile when going to a foreign country an getting a temporary phone contract (or something similar)
% adoption of eSIM technology is increasing rapidly due to its flexibility, remote provisioning capability, and suitability for IoT and mobile devices
% most newly released phone support esims -> new attack vector for adversaries
% people with older hardware i.e no esim support by their phone are left out -> introduction of eSIM on SIM
% esim.me marketed their esim on sim as "worlds first eSIM Card" with their launch in 2020
% esim on sim enable old phones to use eSIM via sim slot or other applications
\section{Motivation}
% esim standard is developed by the GSMA, ETSI and 3GPP -> security was build into the design from the ground up
% other researches have already looked at the specs in depth (cite papers here)
% implementation of the esim firmware is still up to the manufacturs which develope their own versions -> possibility of vulnerabilities in their implementations
% lack of formal security evaluation
% security vulnerabilities can have a major impact -> persistence of exploits are high: malicouse profiles may persist accross reboots or even device resets; often low level and invisible -> particularly dangerous and hard to detect
% sims have direct, priviledged, unfiltered access to the baseband
% esim os are closed source and implemented by the manufactruers -> not subject to open review
% strengthens the importance of black-box testing methodologies to uncover implementation specific issues without requiring internal access
% also has potential for undocumented features and backdoors -> esim vendors might introduce update endpoints to update their esim firmware, or add extra functionality outside of the specs
% non standard implementations may introduce bugs or security flaws
% implementation bugs: like any other complex embedded system esim stack are susceptiuble to bugs
% particular dangeros due to the priviledged rele of the esim in device architecture
% esim specs may have been interpretated differently by the different vendors
% differential testing offers automated and scalable method to detect inconsistency in the different implementations -> comparing output of multiple esim on sim implementations against the same inputs
% this thesis addresses need for systematic security and correctness evaluation of esim on sim implementations -> differential testing
% differential testing: compare multiple implementations against each other -> identify anomalies under identical/similar inputs
% goal: uncover functional deviations and security issues in a black-box setting
\section{Contribution}
% implement framework for differential testing of esims (esims and esim on sim)
% containing: fuzzing of structural input when communicating with the esim, fuzzing on transport level, tracing and replaying recordings from one esim to another; make it accessible via cli and as a library for scripting
% this includes custom LPA implementation, APDU mutation engine, and structured fuzzing tools
% using property based testing: generate valid but edge-case-rich inputs targeting high-level esim commands -> detecting errors beyond byte-level malformations
% using the tracing functionality we discover first implementation differences in the implementation
% reverse engineer the update functionality of the estk.me esim
% demonstrate the framworks ability in security research:
% through apdu level differnetial testing, we discover and evaluate bug in the profile provisioning process of one manufacturer -> suggests potential security risk such as certificate validation bypass -> analyze and evaluate potential impact
\section{Outline}
%