EPS Security Architecture

The Evolved Packet System (EPS) brings two new major ingredients into the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) environment: the radio network Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) with a new radio interface, and the Internet Protocol (IP)-based core network Evolved Packet Core (EPC). The design of the EPS security architecture follows the same principle of maximizing, from a system point of view, the synergies between security functions and other functions. This chapter shows how major security features fit into the EPS architecture. It describes how confidentiality and integrity protection mechanisms are embedded in the protocol stack of EPS, and depicts the relevant signalling plane protocols. The chapter discusses all standardized security features that are included in the EPS security architecture in order to meet security requirements. Controlled Vocabulary Terms 3G mobile communication; data integrity; IP networks; radio access networks; signalling protocols