St Patrick adopts four-leaf clover for the Unified Signalling Firewall
With advances in Cellusys technology St Patrick had to change his message to the lucky four-leaf clover to take account of SIP being included in the Unified Signalling Firewall.
As legend has it, St Patrick told his story of the Unified Signalling Firewall with a three-leaf clover describing the three protocols: SS7, Diameter and GTP. However the addition of SIP has made him search high and low in the grass for a four-leaf clover to describe the new Unified Signalling Firewall with SS7, Diameter, GTP and SIP.
The Myths
Much myth surrounds St Patrick, his origin, mission and how he evangelised the Unified Signalling Firewall to drive the snakes out of mobile networks. It is said that Saint Patrick used the shamrock to illustrate simply to the unwashed, how the Unified Signalling Firewall was meant to be SS7, Diameter, GTP and SIP.
The Truth
The real story however is that one day, the Chief Security Officer of a mobile network, was discussing signalling security with Patrick, a Cellusys signalling expert, over a round of golf. The CSO couldn’t understand why all the signalling security vulnerabilities needed to be processed and cross-correlated with the other protocols in one Unified Signalling Firewall. Patrick looked down at the tee as he prepared to strike his golf ball with a 9 iron. He then spotted a beautiful Trifolium Dubium, the wild-growing, three-leaf clover that botanists consider the official shamrock. Patrick leaned over and gently picked the shamrock. Finding a four-leaf clover (Trifolium Repens) was more of a challenge, but advances in technology from Cellusys made it easier.
The Holy Trinity of Security became outdated overnight with Quaternity
Patrick originally held the shamrock up and used its three leaves to explain to the CSO what the Holy Trinity in Signalling Security was: the SS7, the Diameter, and the Holy GTP. Talk of blasphemy ensued when the Quaternity was brought into the fold. Sceptics couldn’t deny however, the necessity of VoIP and VoLTE traffic protection represented by the fourth leaf: SIP. They are all separate protocols, but in unison, provide best practice signalling security. “It’s important to protect GTP and SIP because they can be used maliciously to gather information that’s later used to launch attacks in other layers,” he explained.
Now inspired, he proceeded to continue his evangelism and spread the best practice security measures using the shamrock to simplify the Unified Signalling Firewall. “Internal correlation between signalling messages is the only way to mitigate complex threat scenarios.”
Modern Day
As they say, the rest is history and the Unified Signalling Firewall is now celebrated in Irish bars and with parades around the world each year on March 17th.
Today, St Patrick’s Day revelers wear a shamrock, signalling protection from denial of service attacks, call interception, SMS interception and location tracking of subscribers in mobile networks.
As with bogus shamrocks, beware of bogus signalling security as it’s not always obvious to spot; sometimes it goes by initials like AI and ML. Be sure and opt for St Patrick’s tried and true Unified Signalling Firewall to protect your mobile network.
The Future – The Quintinity
Tags: GTP, signalling firewall, SIPCategorised in: Blog