SIMurai: Slicing Through the Complexity of SIM Card Security Research

SIM cards are widely regarded as trusted entities within mobile networks. But what if they were not trustworthy? In this paper, we argue that malicious SIM cards are a realistic threat, and demonstrate that they can launch impactful attacks against mobile devices and their basebands.

We design and implement SIMURAI, a software platform for security-focused SIM exploration and experimentation. At its core, SIMURAI features a flexible software implementation of a SIM. In contrast to existing SIM research tooling that typically involves physical SIM cards, SIMURAI adds flexibility by enabling deliberate violation of application-level and transmission-level behavior—a valuable asset for further exploration of SIM features and attack capabilities.

We integrate the platform into common cellular security test beds, demonstrating that smartphones can successfully connect to mobile networks using our software SIM. Additionally, we integrate SIMURAI with emulated baseband firmwares and carry out a fuzzing campaign that leads to the discovery of two high-severity vulnerabilities on recent flagship smartphones. We also demonstrate how rogue carriers and attackers with physical access can trigger these vulnerabilities with ease, emphasizing the need to recognize hostile SIMs in cellular security threat models.