By Adeel
Billions of mobile phone users around the world are at risk of having their calls intercepted and recorded after hackers broke the encryption used to protect 80 per cent of the world’s mobiles.
People regularly trading in confidential information, such as Government officials and executives, would be the most likely eavesdropping targets but virtually anyone with enough skills and determination could harness the research for nefarious means, security experts warn.
German computer engineer Karsten Nohl told a hacker conference in Berlin that he and his team decoded the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) encryption algorithm to draw attention to gaping security holes in the technology and drive mobile operators to patch them.
About 80 per cent – or 3.5 billion – of the world’s mobiles are based on GSM, which is over 20 years old.
Nohl, who has published the secret GSM encryption code online, told the Chaos Communication Congress that a skilled eavesdropper using basic equipment and free software could be recording phone calls within 15 minutes.
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Hi.
Im going to Pakistan next week, inshAllah.
Im wondering which Wireless Broadband I can use? I have heard of the EVO Wireless Broadband.
Its that a good option?
I will use that in a pind, the are GSM signal there.
I recommend you Wi-Tribe or Qubee
qubee and wi-tribe sukzz ..!! the best is ptcl evo …!!
I read about this yesterday and actually GSM networks which use 64-bit encryption are only so far vulnerable to this.
Can someone please confirm and tell what encryption technology is used for networks in Pakistan? 64-bit or 128-bit?
Great update.. Read about this Nohl test months ago.. he said that he will do this till 1st of Jan..and he did it on time.. Security experts are having mix feelings… Lets just wait for his howto conference and then we will see that if its worthy or not..
The security of GSM encryption was shown to be weak since at least 1994. This new development just puts spying on GSM communications within reach of any tech-oriented person with a few thousand dollars worth of equipment.
All 5 are using 64bit its mean we are on risk….
HACKERZ ON THE GOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
lo.. ek nai mosibat su li.. ;-p
Service providers in Pakistan better move to 3G technologies!
Nice post but you haven’t mentioned the method which will be use as you read at the news and original research paper there he mentioned that you need lots of resources to achieve this and as per i know this was possible in 1994 and gov already have those resources to intercept the phone calls they are not doing like the Nohi mentioned they are using different thing.
The research paper is available for every one to get there hands on but as he said that things are not easy as they seems to be like making that much stuff worth lots of money and if someone have that much why he want to intercept it.
Btw there more methods available for intercept calls.