WhiteCell - Protecting Mobile Data

Originally a means of conveying short text messages to and from mobile users, the short message service (SMS) has become an additional transport layer for various mobile data applications. According to recent market figures, overall SMS traffic volume is growing at 15 to 20% a month. Seven billion SMS messages per month are now being sent in Europe alone. SMS services revenues account for approximately 10% of the total revenues of some mobile operators.

The application use of SMS is wide ranging and includes simple text messaging, voice mail notifications (VMN), over the air (OTA) updates of service parameters, pull and push-based information as well as being an advanced services bearer in the case of WAP.

WAP introduces a whole new world of content available on the existing data channel of the mobile handsets.

The originally planned SMS traffic levels have been far exceeded. This, combined with increasing WAP deployments are creating significant challenges. The most important of theses are:

	Preventing Revenue Loss — If inappropriate content, threats, spamming, commercial abuse, malicious traffic, etc. are being carried on the network, the operator can be liable to legal actions, fines or even suspension of license. At the very least, the quality of service perceived by subscribers will be jeopardized and outbound churn increased.
	Improving the Service Offering — How does the network operator control and manage this huge volume of traffic efficiently (ensuring that subscribers are not tricked into making premium rate calls, that there is no denial of service and that the network has sufficient capacity)?
	Marketing Insights — Proper analysis of the mobile data traffic yields a wealth of insight into subscriber usage (or non usage) and allows highly focused and personalized marketing strategies to increase service penetration, expand usage and increase satisfaction.

As mobile data volume continues to grow, wireless operators are being exposed to an increasing number of harmful traffic types. These have the potential to cause:

	A Threat to Network Integrity — For example, flooding, which is essentially an attack on network resources, designed to bring down the network by flooding it with useless traffic.
	Denial of Service to Subscriber — Prevent one or more users to access services by: • Keeping the SIM card constantly full with SMS • Taking advantage of known handset software bugs (e.g., buffer overruns)
	Damage to Subscriber — From unwanted or inappropriate SMS content. This includes: • Spam (unsolicited content) • Inviting handset users to dial premium rate numbers • Obscene or inappropriate content
	Threat of Legal Action — In the European Union and in some other countries, unwanted content or provision of uncontrolled message sending is counter to national laws. A network operator may be liable to legal controls or actions if they do not attempt to block spamming.