Tracking Location Information of VoLTE Phones

As the mobile communications environment has undergone drastic changes in the wake of applicable technology development, mobile traffic is rapidly increasing around the world. To cope with such a rapid traffic increase, Korean mobile carriers chose to deploy their 4G networks early rather than upgrading the conventional 3G networks. However, as they were bent on deploying and advancing the Long Term Evolution (LTE) network faster than others, the mobile carriers did not make sufficient considerations for LTE network security. In addition, the LTE network is exposed to all security threats that can occur in any IP-based network such as falsification/alteration of information, eavesdropping, etc. as the LTE network is an all-IP based network providing data and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services. This study attempts to describe the security threats associated with the tracking of location information of VoLTE phones.