Arachno 1D Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 US and British intelligence agencies hacked into a major manufacturer of Sim cards in order to steal codes that facilitate eavesdropping on mobiles, a US news website says.The Intercept says the revelations came from US intelligence contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.The Dutch company allegedly targeted - Gemalto - says it is taking the allegations "very seriously".It operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. The Intercept says that "the great Sim heist" gave US and British surveillance agencies "the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world's cellular communications, including both voice and data".It says that among the clients of the Netherlands-based company are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and "some 450 wireless network providers around the world". How does the hack work? Each Sim card has an individual encryption key, installed by the chip manufacturer, that secures communications between the handset in which it inserted and mobile phone masts.This means that if anyone were to snoop on conversations or text messages, they would receive garbled, unintelligible data. That is, of course, unless those carrying out the surveillance get hold of the encryption key. With that information, they can even decrypt previously intercepted communications.However, this tactic only works for phone conversations and text messages. Communications through mobile applications such as Whatsapp, iMessage and many email services have separate encryption systems. Source........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPreston Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Gemalto also makes virtually all smarcards used for smartcard login to active directory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osiris Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Stealing, really? They just borrowed the encryption keys to better protect you, where are the thank you articles... T3X4S and astropheed 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arachno 1D Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Stealing, really? They just borrowed the encryption keys to better protect you, where are the thank you articles... Well it bypassed the need to breech governmental regulations at least in the UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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