Security architectures of mobile systems

We take a brief look at security architectures of 2G, 3G and 4G cellular systems, emphasizing design decisions that were made for each system. There are many trade-offs between cost, deployability, security and usability. We also discuss other factors that affect design decisions, e.g. technopolitical issues, regulatory requirements and time schedules in standardization. The scope of the talk is on security features specified by 3GPP for 3G and 4G, and by ETSI for 2G. In the end, we discuss some challenges and future design decisions for 5G systems.