Security News > 2023 > July > TETRA radio comms used by emergency heroes easily cracked, say experts

Updated Midnight Blue, a security firm based in the Netherlands, has found five vulnerabilities that affect Terrestrial Trunked Radio, used in Europe, the United Kingdom, and many other countries by government agencies, law enforcement, and emergency services organizations.

The security pros explain that the use of secret, proprietary cryptography has been a common theme in previously identified flaws affecting GSM, GMR, GPRS, DMR, and P25 - used in North America.

"Despite being widely used and relying on secret cryptography, TETRA had never been subjected to in-depth public security research in its 20+ year history as a result of this secrecy," Midnight Blue explained in its disclosure.

In a statement, ETSI said it adheres to export control regulations, and that any weaknesses in the security of TETRA would be due to that rather than a deliberate backdooring of the technology.

"The TETRA security standards have been specified together with national security agencies and are designed for and subject to export control regulations which determine the strength of the encryption," the organization said.

"These regulations apply to all available encryption technologies. As the designer of the TETRA security algorithms, ETSI does not consider that this constitutes a 'backdoor.'".

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/07/24/tetra_radio_security_flaws/