This technical specification covers the security mechanisms and procedures necessary to protect the MAP protocol. The complete set of enhancements and extensions to facilitate security protection for the MAP protocol is termed MAPsec and it covers transport security in the MAP protocol itself and the security management procedures.

The security mechanisms specified for MAP are on the application layer. This means that MAPsec is independent of the network and transport protocols to be used.

This technical specification contains the stage-2 specification for security protection of the MAP protocol. The actual implementation (stage-3) specification can be found in the MAP stage-3 specification, TS 29.002 [4].

NOTE: It is explicitly noted that automated key management and key distribution is not part of Rel-5. All key management and key distribution in Rel-5 shall therefore be carried out by other means (see Annex A).