Listening to mobile phones using software.

[Детективное агентство Тула]

Re: Smartphones are following us again ...

Who and what just does not follow us?

 

[Детективное агентство Тула]

Re: Listening to mobile using software. Which exist

Thank you Dmitry!
Information is of practical importance.

 

[Детективное агентство Тула]

Re: Interview with Mobile Communications Security Researcher

Roman will not deny the ability to catch fear on the audience.
Very curious.

 

[Частный детектив Днепр]

Re: Listening to mobile using software. Which exist

Yes, it is!

 

[Частный детектив Днепр]

Re: Interview with Mobile Communications Security Researcher

Roma well done! Once again remind you - do not chat on the phone - very useful.

 

[Частный детектив Оренбург]

Re: Listening to mobile using software. Which exist

Thank you Dmitry! Very interesting and informative.

 

[Плотников Юрий Михайлович]

Re: Smartphones are following us again ...

Thanks for the interesting stuff!

 

[Плотников Юрий Михайлович]

Re: Listening to mobile using software. Which exist

Thanks, interesting!

 

[Плотников Юрий Михайлович]

Re: Interview with Mobile Communications Security Researcher

Thanks, interesting!

 

[Орлан]

Spy in your pocket

It's no secret that cell phones are a convenient tool for tracking their owners. However, few people realize how simple and legal such espionage is.

At the SOURCE Boston 2010 Information Security Conference held in Boston, USA, one of the most interesting reports was devoted to the vulnerabilities of mobile telephone networks.

Two Californian researchers, Don Bailey of iSec Partners and independent consultant Nick DePetrillo described in detail how, with certain technical skills and knowledge of known weaknesses in GSM network infrastructure, highly advanced spy operations can be carried out - without committing anything illegal, such as stealing confidential information or breaking password protection.

Summarizing the essence of the report by Bailey and DePetrillo, we can say that the researchers were able to quite legally, in general, collect methods on the network, and then compare so much data that is enough to find out the mobile phone numbers of the “objects” of interest to them, after why, using these numbers, calculate and track the location or movements of their owners, listen to their voicemail and monitor their phone contacts. Typically, such actions are usually called espionage, but in this case, all information collection operations are carried out passively and based on the same standard network requests, which ensure smooth operation of the entire system.

The essence of the weaknesses used in the GSM infrastructure (and CDMA, too, according to researchers, simply GSM networks were the first to be studied) is that at the birth of mass mobile digital communications systems, such infrastructure was created by telecommunication companies that were either state-controlled or owned to the largest corporations. In other words, these were parties that trusted each other with common interests, as a result of which many basic protocols were implemented on the network so that the service information passing through the channels was assumed to be purely internal by default. And since it was not intended for external users, there are usually no protective measures like authentication of the parties in the GSM service channels.

However, over the long years of operation, the initially tough situation with access to service data gradually changed. Due to technologies such as office PBXs or VoIP services on the Internet, almost anyone could become a telephone service provider. In other words, a significant share of service information in digital telephone networks has become relatively easily accessible for external requests. The purpose of which can be by no means only high-quality communication, but also espionage for subscribers. Which, in fact, was demonstrated by the research work of Bailey and DePetrillo, consisting of several successive stages.

The first part of their research comes down to obtaining the phone number of a person who is interested in spies from a provider’s database available for queries, where phone numbers are tied to the names of their owners for the Caller ID service or “Subscriber Identity” service. This information from telephone providers is not only "publicly available", but also not classified. That is, for those who understand what needs to be done, if there is time and a fairly moderate amount of money for a methodical sequence of calls, it is possible to get all the necessary numbers.

According to DePetrillo, they used free software for the PBX to simulate a Caller ID request, and automatic phone calls to themselves to force the system to start viewing the database for the name they were interested in. The information returned from the provider’s database was recorded and tied to phone numbers in the Caller ID database. Researchers processed the networks of several cities with such requests, having fished out thousands of records from the providers' databases. According to DePetrillo, the program they wrote through several consecutive iterations can, in principle, create a database for subscribers of all mobile phones in the USA in a few weeks. Moreover, as Bailey, who worked on this issue, says, from a formal point of view, such actions are neither illegal, nor even a violation of the operating conditions of the system.

The next important stage of the “operation” is the comparison of the established telephone number with the geographical location of the telephone. The basic protocol SS7 (Signaling System # 7) allows you to route calls all over the planet, and in order to allow different networks to redirect the connection from one to another, a single database called HLR (from Home Location Register, i.e. "registry") is used own subscribers "), where data on the geographical location of numbers are recorded. Each particular phone is registered primarily in the mobile switching centers (MSC) of the particular region where it is located, but at the same time all such data is also uploaded to the main registry.

In principle, it is assumed that only communication providers have access to the registry of locations. However, in Europe, for some time now, small companies have appeared that have found a niche in the fact that for a relatively modest, but constant fee, they provide subscribers with online access to HLR data with service information about network subscribers. Typically, such data is of interest to corporations that use it for targeted promotion of, say, new goods and services, or for other marketing initiatives.

In other words, there is a completely legal way of accessing the HLR database, and not so long ago, German researcher Tobias Engel demonstrated an effective method of "location of mobile phones using Signaling System # 7" (as his report at CCC-2008, the hacker congress was called Chaos Club in Berlin).

Using Engel’s research as a starting point, Bailey and DePetrillo developed a program for dynamically mapping information from the HLR (about mobile switching centers and mast identifiers) to Caller ID information — to determine which city and even (if the city is large) in which part of the phone is at any given time. In other words, if a person’s phone number is known, then you can invisibly track all of his geolocation data and geographical movements on a planetary scale.

In addition, the Bailey and DePetrillo study has a third important stage - access to voicemail messages for the victim’s number, as well as all other telephones associated with this number. To do this, we use the well-known SlyDial system (literally "tricky dialing"), which makes two almost simultaneous calls to the victim’s phone, one of which is interrupted before they are answered, and the second goes directly to voicemail due to the previous call. Thanks to this trick, the caller immediately gets into the voicemail box, where he can not only listen to the messages left, but also get access to the numbers of those who left the message. The same process of cunning dialing is repeated against these subscribers, adding a lot of additional information to the passive attacker to the already available intelligence about the main target of the attack and about the people around him.

According to Bailey and DePetrillo, in principle, they contacted several telephone providers and provided them with information that many of the data that by default are intended for internal use are accessible to attackers from the outside. However, American GSM providers told researchers that their hands are "closely connected." For the attacks demonstrated by hackers are based on the rules by which all GSM networks around the world work. To ensure network compatibility and smooth routing, even the largest providers should provide this kind of information to all other providers.

When asked by hackers themselves what mobile phone users themselves can do to protect themselves in this situation, Don Bailey put it something like this: "You just need to be aware of the threats that a cell phone carries."
Posted by Bird Kiwi


https://www.computerra.ru/