Cellphone hacking | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Edward Snowden is back with one of the biggest revelations about the government's widespread surveillance program. The US National Security Agency ( NSA ) and British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters ( GCHQ ) hacked into the networks of the world's biggest SIM card manufacturer, according to top-secret documents given to The Intercept by former NSA-contractor-turned-whistle blower, Edward Snowden . OPERATION DAPINO GAMMA The leaked documents suggests that in a joint operation, the NSA and the GCHQ formed the Mobile Handset Exploitation Team (MHET) in April 2010, and as the name suggests, the unit was built to target vulnerabilities in cellphone. Under an operation dubbed DAPINO GAMMA, the unit hacked into a Digital security company Gemalto , the largest SIM card manufacturer in the world, and stole SIM Card Encryption Keys that are used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications. Gemalto, a huge company that operates in 85 countr...

Security researchers have discovered a massive security flaw that could let hackers and cybercriminals listen to private phone calls and read text messages on a potentially vast scale – no matter if the cellular networks use the latest and most advanced encryption available. The critical flaw lies in the global telecom network known as Signal System 7 that powers multiple phone carriers across the world, including AT&T and Verizon , to route calls, texts and other services to each other. The vulnerability has been discovered by the German researchers who will present their findings at a hacker conference in Hamburg later this month. "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," said The Washington Post, which first uncovered flaws in the system earlier this year. NUMBER OF SECURITY FLAWS IN SS7 SS7 or ...

A notable number of cell phone towers around the United States are rogue that, according to latest report, could spoof legitimate towers and intercept calls. The research carried out by ESD America , a defense and law enforcement technology firm based in Las Vegas, shows that a rogue cell phone towers, also known as "interceptors", may process the call. ESD America, the company that makes the super-secure CryptoPhone, makes one of the oldest and most expensive high-security cell phones in the market. It provides equipment and training to more than 40 countries with a goal to provide technical security assistance to government and corporate clients across Asia. SEVERAL ROGUE CELL PHONE TOWERS DISCOVERED While field-testing its secure Android handset, the CryptoPhone 500 , the firm came across the existence of a series of fake base stations along the Eastern seaboard of the US. Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, told the US publication Popular Science tha...