Discover Top Posts Tagged with #cell phone security

Having a workplace cell phone can be exciting, especially if you’ve never had a cell phone from your employer before.

#cell phone security #digital marketing #mobile

Revealed: Long-running espionage campaign targets phone carriers to snoop on VIPs' location, call records

#hacking #cell phones #data security #data theft #cell phone security #espionage #spy crap

"Massive scale" intrusion into mobile carriers' networks exposed customers' location, call data for years / Boing Boing

#hacking #data security #data theft #cell phones #cell phone security #espionage #spy crap

See @FullFrontalSamB take on government surveillance & cell phone security with a hip-hop assist from @TalibKwelihttps://t.co/wFkIo7eFT0

— ACLU National (@ACLU) December 13, 2016

#government surveillance #cell phone security #@FullFrontalSamB

BOYCOTT APPLE?

Apparently the FBI needs to get into someone’s phone data in order to solve a crime. That is the crime of the San Bernardino shooting. There is just one problem and that is that the maker of the phone will not allow the FBI access to the data. Apple has said and I quote: “The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our…

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#Apple #boycott Apple. Boycott #cell phone #cell phone security #HACKERS #HACKING #internet security #Iphones #security #security measures #Tim Cook

German researchers discover a flaw that could let anyone listen to your cell calls.

By Craig Timberg, Washington Post, December 18, 2014

German researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale--even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available.

The flaws, to be reported at a hacker conference in Hamburg this month, are the latest evidence of widespread insecurity on SS7, the global network that allows the world’s cellular carriers to route calls, texts and other services to each other. Experts say it’s increasingly clear that SS7, first designed in the 1980s, is riddled with serious vulnerabilities that undermine the privacy of the world’s billions of cellular customers.

The flaws discovered by the German researchers are actually functions built into SS7 for other purposes--such as keeping calls connected as users speed down highways, switching from cell tower to cell tower--that hackers can repurpose for surveillance because of the lax security on the network.

Those skilled at the myriad functions built into SS7 can locate callers anywhere in the world, listen to calls as they happen or record hundreds of encrypted calls and texts at a time for later decryption. There also is potential to defraud users and cellular carriers by using SS7 functions, the researchers say.

These vulnerabilities continue to exist even as cellular carriers invest billions of dollars to upgrade to advanced 3G technology aimed, in part, at securing communications against unauthorized eavesdropping. But even as individual carriers harden their systems, they still must communicate with each other over SS7, leaving them open to any of thousands of companies worldwide with access to the network. That means that a single carrier in Congo or Kazakhstan, for example, could be used to hack into cellular networks in the United States, Europe or anywhere else.

“It’s like you secure the front door of the house, but the back door is wide open,” said Tobias Engel, one of the German researchers.

The researchers did not find evidence that their latest discoveries, which allow for the interception of calls and texts, have been marketed to governments on a widespread basis. But vulnerabilities publicly reported by security researchers often turn out to be tools long used by secretive intelligence services, such as the National Security Agency or Britain’s GCHQ, but not revealed to the public.

“Many of the big intelligence agencies probably have teams that do nothing but SS7 research and exploitation,” said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the ACLU and an expert on surveillance technology. “They’ve likely sat on these things and quietly exploited them.”

Nohl on Wednesday demonstrated the ability to collect and decrypt a text message using the phone of a German senator, who cooperated in the experiment. But Nohl said the process could be automated to allow massive decryption of calls and texts collected across an entire city or a large section of a country, using multiple antennas.

“It’s all automated, at the push of a button,” Nohl said. “It would strike me as a perfect spying capability, to record and decrypt pretty much any network… Any network we have tested, it works.”

Those tests have included more than 20 networks worldwide, including T-Mobile in the United States. The other major U.S. carriers have not been tested, though Nohl and Engel said it’s likely at least some of them have similar vulnerabilities.

The issue of cell phone interception is particularly sensitive in Germany because of news reports last year, based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, that a phone belonging to Chancellor Angela Merkel was the subject of NSA surveillance. The techniques of that surveillance have not become public, though Nohl said that the SS7 hacking method that he and Engel discovered is one of several possibilities.

U.S. embassies and consulates in dozens of foreign cities, including Berlin, are outfitted with antennas for collecting cellular signals, according to reports by German magazine Der Spiegel, based on documents released by Snowden. Many cell phone conversations worldwide happen with either no encryption or weak encryption.

Secretly eavesdropping on calls and texts would violate laws in many countries, including the United States, except when done with explicit court or other government authorization. Such restrictions likely do little to deter criminals or foreign spies, say surveillance experts, who say that embassies based in Washington likely collect cellular signals.

The German senator who cooperated in Nohl’s demonstration of the technology, Thomas Jarzombek of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, said that while many in that nation have been deeply angered by revelations about NSA spying, few are surprised that such intrusions are possible.

“After all the NSA and Snowden things we’ve heard, I guess nobody believes it’s possible to have a truly private conversation on a mobile phone,” he said. “When I really need a confidential conversation, I use a fixed-line” phone.

#SS7 #cell phone security #phone surveillance

Do YOU Know What Your Cell Phone's Flashlight App Is Doing Behind Your Back?

Do YOU Know What Your Cell Phone’s Flashlight App Is Doing Behind Your Back?

Do you have a flashlight app on your phone? Many if not most people have downloaded a flashlight app onto their cell phone. These apps that turn your phone into a bright flashlight are just so handy!

But did you know many of the top rated cell phone flashlight apps contain malicious malware? Odds are pretty good your simple flashlight app may be spying on you and sending information to interested…

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#Cell phone flashlights #cell phone malware #Cell phone security #cell phone technology #Cell phones #cyber security #internet security #Technology