Meet ‘Simjacker,’ a nasty mobile vulnerability researchers say puts 1 billion phones at risk
A vulnerability in smartphone technology has made it possible for outsiders to conduct targeted surveillance against victims for the past two years, according to new security findings. Researchers from AdaptiveMobile Security said Thursday they found an SMS-based hacking technique that actively is being exploited by a spyware vendor to track individual phone users. The company did not disclose who is behind the surveillance or the identities of the victims. Researchers warned that the attack, dubbed “Simjacker,” has ramifications for more than 1 billion mobile phones worldwide. By relying on malicious text messages, hackers infect target phones to retrieve location information and other data. The attack leverages SIM cards, a circuit that stores customers’ international mobile subscriber information in a way that isn’t restricted to a single phone platform. “This is potentially the most sophisticated attack ever seen over core mobile networks,” Cathal Mc Daid, AdaptiveMobile Security’s chief technology officer, said in a […]
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