Cell phone Security Flaws Are Threatening Your Privacy

According to recent intelligence reports, spies are reportedly listening to the U.S. President’s phone calls and using fake cellular towers in order to intercept calls. The cellular infrastructure is insecure. The various weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the modern communication system, threaten both personal privacy and national security.

This should be the first and foremost concern of the cybersecurity officials and the government needs to do a lot more to fix this problem. A large number of companies are selling products and software programs that let buyers take advantage of these security flaws and vulnerabilities. Hackers and spies can get their hands on spyware such as Xnspy quite easily and that too at a very affordable price. These tools were originally meant for parents to monitor their children and their internet activities but have now become increasingly popular for keeping tabs on someone.

These apps are equipped with crazy features that let you monitor text messages, call logs, emails, photos, emails, locations, web browsing history as well as social media activity. Xnspy, along with many other apps, lets you know everything about a person’s offline and online activities. These apps are becoming advanced day by day and give anyone the ability to spy.

Along with spyware, cell-site simulators, usually known as Stingray, have become quite popular, too. These simulators have the ability to trick cell phones into connecting with them without the user’s knowledge. These programs are quite sophisticated and can exploit weaknesses in the foundation of the Signaling System 7 or SS7—the global telephone system to track mobile phone users and intercept their text messages and calls.

These attacks are more damaging than you think and pose serious financial consequences. For example, criminals were able to get their hands on SS7 vulnerabilities and committed massive monetary fraud in Germany. They were able to pull this off by redirecting and intercepting text messages that contained one-time passwords for bank customers. The passwords were then used to steal money from the victims’ bank accounts.

When it comes to blocking cell-site simulators and curb SS7 attacks, the policymakers and industry haven’t done any work worth attention. One of the few lawmakers Senator Ron Wyden spoke about the problem in August. He urged the Department of Justice to be upfront with the federal courts regarding the cell-site simulators and their exploitation. No response has been seen until now.

Several layers of technology form the foundation of the entire international communications system. Some of them happen to be more than 40 years old and thus, not 100% reliable. On the other hand, many haven’t had the chance to have a proper audit or attention that could make them perfectly secure. Security wasn’t exactly the first thing kept in mind while laying the groundworks of the mobile system.

SS7 is the popular protocol that lets the telephone networks to talk to one another. SS7 was built in 1975 and on the assumption that anyone who is able to connect to the network is trustworthy. Anyone, who can connect to this network can exploit it to eavesdrop on your phone calls or track your location. Diameter is the latest substitute for SS7 and has similar issues. Hundreds of companies spread all over the world are connected globally with the help of SS7 that make it a high possibility that the system’s credentials are sold or leaked.

GSM, another protocol was invented in 1991. It lets your mobile phone communicate with the cell tower so it can transmit data and both create, and receive calls. 2G, the predecessor of GSM, does not validate whether the tower your cell phone is connected to is authentic or not. This makes it fair game for anyone with malicious intent to use a cell-site simulator and mimic a cell tower so they can eavesdrop on your phone conversations and obtain your location as well.

The successors of GSM such as 3G, 4G, and 5G have already solved many problems of the 2G mobile network. As a result, large carriers have begun to drop their 2G systems. Even then, most of our phones still support 2G and most of them don’t even come with the disable option. This makes our phones more prone to attacks. According to research, 3G, 4G, and 5G have certain security flaws as well that allows the new generation of cell-site simulators to continue invading our privacy.

Cellular technology has embedded into our society and nobody could have imagined how easy it could be to exploit the vulnerabilities. From China and Israel to Russia and all over the world, everyone is creating cell-site simulators that offer access to the SS7 network at cheap prices making it easy for anyone to purchase this technology. All over the world, spies, criminal organizations as well as drug cartels are realizing the power these technologies hold.

It is quite a daunting task and the reason nothing has been done before that could be the involvement of international companies in the cellular network. Removing these weaknesses is as important for law enforcement as it is for other people. It would take a joint international effort to secure the international cellular system.