***New ‘Simjacker’ vulnerability
exploited by surveillance companies for espionage operation***
DUBLIN-Thursday 12 September 2019 [ AETOS Wire ]
(BUSINESS WIRE) --
Following extensive research, AdaptiveMobile Security, a world leader
in cyber-telecoms security, today announced it has uncovered a new and
previously undetected vulnerability. This vulnerability is currently
being exploited and is being used for targeted surveillance of mobile
phone users. The vulnerability and its associated attacks have been
named, ‘Simjacker’ as it involves the hijacking of SIM cards and
threatens mobile phone users across the globe.
Simjacker
extracts the location information of mobile phone users from vulnerable
operators, retrieved using malicious SMS messages. The location
information of thousands of devices was obtained over time without the
knowledge or consent of the targeted mobile phone users. Based on
previous intelligence, it is likely that these attacks originated from a
surveillance company which works with governments, to track and monitor
individuals; bypassing existing signalling protection.
Cathal
Mc Daid, Chief Technology Officer of AdaptiveMobile Security explained,
“Simjacker represents a clear danger to the mobile operators and
subscribers. This is potentially the most sophisticated attack ever seen
over core mobile networks. It’s a major wake-up call that shows hostile
actors are investing heavily in increasingly complex and creative ways
to undermine network security. This compromises the security and trust
of customers, mobile operators and impacts the national security of
entire countries.”
While
the primary attack detected involved the retrieval of mobile phone
locations, Simjacker has been further exploited to perform many other
types of attacks against individuals and mobile operators such as fraud,
scam calls, information leakage, denial of service and espionage.
AdaptiveMobile Security Threat Intelligence analysts observed the
hackers vary their attacks, testing many of these further exploits.
In
theory, all makes and models of mobile phone are open to attack as the
vulnerability is linked to a technology embedded on SIM cards.
AdaptiveMobile Security research indicates that the Simjacker
vulnerability could extend to over 1 billion mobile phone users
globally, potentially impacting countries in North and South America,
West Africa, Europe, Middle East and indeed any region of the world
where this SIM card technology is in use.
Mc
Daid continued, “Simjacker worked so well and was being successfully
exploited for years because it took advantage of a combination of
complex interfaces and obscure technologies, showing that mobile
operators cannot rely on standard established defences. Now that this
vulnerability has been revealed, we fully expect the exploit authors and
other malicious actors will try to evolve these attacks into other
areas”.
AdaptiveMobile
Security has been working closely with their customers and the wider
industry; including both mobile network operators and SIM card
manufacturers to protect mobile phone subscribers. AdaptiveMobile
Security are committed to using their global threat intelligence to
build defences against these new sophisticated attacks that are
circumventing current security measures.
Further details on Simjacker are available on www.simjacker.com and
Cathal Mc Daid, Chief Technology Officer of AdaptiveMobile Security
will be presenting on Simjacker at the Virus Bulletin Conference,
London, 3 October 2019.
About
AdaptiveMobile
Security is the world leader in cyber-telecoms security, protecting
over 2.1 billion subscribers worldwide. The combination of global
insight provided by our security specialists teams, our world-leading
Threat Intelligence Unit and our proprietary, telecom-grade Network
Protection Platform are trusted by the world’s largest service providers
to secure their critical communications infrastructure.
The Company HQ is in Dublin with offices in North America, Europe, South Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
www.adaptivemobile.com
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/52091016/en
Contacts
Press Queries
Máirín O’Sullivan
Communications Manager
+353 87 359 2729
mairin.osullivan@adaptivemobile.com
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