IMSI Catcher | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

At NDSS Symposium 2019, a group of university researchers yesterday revealed newly discovered cellular network vulnerabilities that impact both 4G and 5G LTE protocols. According to a paper published by the researchers, " Privacy Attacks to the 4G and 5G Cellular Paging Protocols Using Side Channel Information, " the new attacks could allow remote attackers to bypass security protections implemented in 4G and 5G, re-enabling IMSI catching devices like " Stingrays " to intercept users' phone calls and track their location. Here below, we have described all the three attacks, how they work, what are their impacts, and why you should be concerned about these attacks. ToRPEDO Attack — Location Verification, DoS, Inject Fake Alerts Short for "TRacking via Paging mEssage DistributiOn," TorPEDO is the most concerning attack that leverages paging protocol, allowing remote attackers to verify a victim device's location, inject fabricated paging mess...

Image Source: Libelium Here's a new danger to your smartphone security: Your mobile device can be hijacked and tracked without your knowledge. Remember Stingrays ? The controversial cell phone spying tool, also known as " IMSI catchers ," has long been used by law enforcement to track and monitor mobile users by mimicking a cellphone tower and tricking their devices to connect to them. Sometimes it even intercepts calls and Internet traffic, sends fake texts, and installs spyware on a victim's phone. Setting up such Stingrays-type surveillance devices , of course, is expensive and needs a lot of efforts, but researchers have now found a new, cheapest way to do the same thing with a simple Wi-Fi hotspot. Yes, Wi-Fi network can capture IMSI numbers from nearby smartphones, allowing almost anyone to track and monitor people wirelessly. IMSI or international mobile subscriber identity is a unique 15-digit number used for authentication of a person when movi...