Hackers Crack Open Mobile Network

As soon as any technology is unveiled, the adept and curious test its boundaries, often discovering flaws. Using four phones and open-source software, a pair of researchers demonstrated how they could monitor targeted mobile calls and texts at the Chaos Computer Club Congress in Berlin. Any call made over the Global System of Mobile Telecommunications, or GSM – about 5 billion devices in all – is vulnerable. The steps building on a series of research and information available online include “locating a particular phone to seizing its unique ID, then leap-frogging from that to getting hold of data swapped between a handset and a base station as calls are made and texts sent” and filtering and removing encryption. The process requires expertise, but at €10 the cost is low. Any who may have assumed that mobile phone calls or texts were secure can no longer rest easy, at least until some technological updates are installed. – YaleGlobal