Entries Tagged "cell phones"

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Paris Hilton Cellphone Hack

The inside story behind the hacking of Paris Hilton’s T-Mobile cell phone.

Good paragraph:

“This was all done not by skilled ‘hackers’ but by kids who managed to ‘social’ their way into a company’s system and gain access to it within one or two phone calls,” said Hallissey, who asked that her current place of residence not be disclosed. “Major corporations have made social engineering way too easy for these kids. In their call centers they hire low-pay employees to man the phones, give them a minimum of training, most of which usually dwells on call times, canned scripts and sales. This isn’t unique to T-Mobile or AOL. This has become common practice for almost every company.

How right she is.

EDITED TO ADD (11/11): Everyone, please stop asking me for Paris Hilton’s—or anyone else’s, for that matter—cellphone number or e-mail adress. I don’t have them.

Posted on May 23, 2005 at 12:41 PM •

T-Mobile Hack

For at least seven months last year, a hacker had access to T-Mobile’s customer network. He’s known to have accessed information belonging to 400 customers—names, Social Security numbers, voicemail messages, SMS messages, photos—and probably had the ability to access data belonging to any of T-Mobile’s 16.3 million U.S. customers. But in its fervor to report on the security of cell phones, and T-Mobile in particular, the media missed the most important point of the story: The security of much of our data is not under our control.

This is new. A dozen years ago, if someone wanted to look through your mail, they would have to break into your house. Now they can just break into your ISP. Ten years ago, your voicemail was on an answering machine in your house; now it’s on a computer owned by a telephone company. Your financial data is on Websites protected only by passwords. The list of books you browse, and the books you buy, is stored in the computers of some online bookseller. Your affinity card allows your supermarket to know what food you like. Data that used to be under your direct control is now controlled by others.

We have no choice but to trust these companies with our privacy, even though the companies have little incentive to protect that privacy. T-Mobile suffered some bad press for its lousy security, nothing more. It’ll spend some money improving its security, but it’ll be security designed to protect its reputation from bad PR, not security designed to protect the privacy of its customers.

This loss of control over our data has other effects, too. Our protections against police abuse have been severely watered down. The courts have ruled that the police can search your data without a warrant, as long as that data is held by others. The police need a warrant to read the e-mail on your computer; but they don’t need one to read it off the backup tapes at your ISP. According to the Supreme Court, that’s not a search as defined by the 4th Amendment.

This isn’t a technology problem, it’s a legal problem. The courts need to recognize that in the information age, virtual privacy and physical privacy don’t have the same boundaries. We should be able to control our own data, regardless of where it is stored. We should be able to make decisions about the security and privacy of that data, and have legal recourse should companies fail to honor those decisions. And just as the Supreme Court eventually ruled that tapping a telephone was a Fourth Amendment search, requiring a warrant—even though it occurred at the phone company switching office—the Supreme Court must recognize that reading e-mail at an ISP is no different.

This essay appeared in eWeek.

Posted on February 14, 2005 at 4:26 PM • View Comments

Automobile Virus

SC Magazine is reporting on a virus that infects Lexus cars:

Lexus cars may be vulnerable to viruses that infect them via mobile phones. Landcruiser 100 models LX470 and LS430 have been discovered with infected operating systems that transfer within a range of 15 feet.

It seems that no one has done this yet, and the story is based on speculation that a cell phone can transfer a virus to the Lexus using Bluetooth. But it’s only a matter of time before something like this actually works.

Posted on February 2, 2005 at 8:00 AM • View Comments

Phishing by Cell Phone

From an alert reader:

I don’t know whether to tell you, or RISKS, or the cops, but I just received an automated call on my cellphone that asked for the last four digits of my Social Security number. The script went:

Hello! This is not a solicitation! We have an important message for J-O-H-N DOE (my first name was spelled out, but the last name was pronounced). If this is J-O-H-N Doe, Press 1 now!

(after pressing 1:)

For your security, please enter the last four digits of your Social Security Number!

I have no idea who it was, because I’ll be—damned—if I’d give out ANY digits of my SSN to an unidentified party. My cell’s display is broken so I’m not sure whether there was any caller ID information on it, but I also know that can be forged. What company expects its customers to give up critical data like that during an unidentified, unsolicited call?

Sadly, there probably are well-meaning people writing automatic telephone scripts that ask this sort of question. But this could very well be a phishing scheme: someone trying to trick the listener into divulging personal information.

In general, my advice is to not divulge this sort of information when you are called. There’s simply no way to verify who the caller is. Far safer is for you to make the call.

For example, I regularly receive calls from the anti-fraud division of my credit card company checking up on particular charges. I always hang up on them and call them back, using the phone number on the back of my card. That gives me more confidence that I’m speaking to a legitimate representative of my credit card company.

Posted on December 7, 2004 at 1:58 PM • View Comments

Two-Factor Authentication with Cell Phones

Here’s a good idea:

ASB and Bank Direct’s internet banking customers will need to have their cellphone close to hand if they want to use the net to transfer more than $2500 into another account from December.

ASB technology and operations group general manager Clayton Wakefield announced the banks would be the first in New Zealand to implement a “two factor authentication” system to shut out online fraudsters, unveiling details of the service on Friday.

After logging on to internet banking, customers who want to remit more than $2500 into a third party account will receive an eight-digit text message to their cellphone, which they will need to enter online within three minutes to complete the transaction.

It’s more secure than a simple username and password. It’s easy to implement, with no extra hardware required (assuming your customers already have cellphones). It’s easy for the customers to understand and to do. What’s not to like?

Posted on November 23, 2004 at 9:41 AM • View Comments

Foiling Metal Detectors

High school kids are sneaking cell phones past metal detectors.

From the New York Post:

Savvy students are figuring out all kinds of ways to get their cell phones past metal-detectors and school-security staff at city high schools, where the devices are banned.

Kids at Martin Luther King Jr. HS on the Upper West Side put the phones behind a belt buckle—and blame the buckle for the beeping metal-detector.

Some girls hide the phones where security guards won’t look—in their bras or between their legs.

Note that they’re not fooling the metal detectors; they’re fooling the people staffing the metal detectors.

Posted on October 27, 2004 at 1:44 PM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.