Vulnerability: Presidential Alert Spoofing in Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) Protocol

CVE-2019-18659 · MEDIUM Severity

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) protocol allows remote attackers to spoof a Presidential Alert because cryptographic authentication is not used, as demonstrated by MessageIdentifier 4370 in LTE System Information Block 12 (aka SIB12). NOTE: testing inside an RF-isolated shield box suggested that all LTE phones are affected by design (e.g., use of Android versus iOS does not matter); testing in an open RF environment is, of course, contraindicated.

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