Entries Tagged "SS7"

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Security Vulnerabilities in the RCS Texting Protocol

Interesting research:

SRLabs founder Karsten Nohl, a researcher with a track record of exposing security flaws in telephony systems, argues that RCS is in many ways no better than SS7, the decades-old phone system carriers still used for calling and texting, which has long been known to be vulnerable to interception and spoofing attacks. While using end-to-end encrypted internet-based tools like iMessage and WhatsApp obviates many of those of SS7 issues, Nohl says that flawed implementations of RCS make it not much safer than the SMS system it hopes to replace.

Posted on December 16, 2019 at 6:00 AM • View Comments

Criminals are Now Exploiting SS7 Flaws to Hack Smartphone Two-Factor Authentication Systems

I’ve previously written about the serious vulnerabilities in the SS7 phone routing system. Basically, the system doesn’t authenticate messages. Now, criminals are using it to hack smartphone-based two-factor authentication systems:

In short, the issue with SS7 is that the network believes whatever you tell it. SS7 is especially used for data-roaming: when a phone user goes outside their own provider’s coverage, messages still need to get routed to them. But anyone with SS7 access, which can be purchased for around 1000 Euros according to The Süddeutsche Zeitung, can send a routing request, and the network may not authenticate where the message is coming from.

That allows the attacker to direct a target’s text messages to another device, and, in the case of the bank accounts, steal any codes needed to login or greenlight money transfers (after the hackers obtained victim passwords).

Posted on May 10, 2017 at 6:50 AM • View Comments

SS7 Vulnerabilities

There are security vulnerabilities in the phone-call routing protocol called SS7.

The flaws discovered by the German researchers are actually functions built into SS7 for other purposes—such as keeping calls connected as users speed down highways, switching from cell tower to cell tower—that hackers can repurpose for surveillance because of the lax security on the network.

Those skilled at the myriad functions built into SS7 can locate callers anywhere in the world, listen to calls as they happen or record hundreds of encrypted calls and texts at a time for later decryption. There also is potential to defraud users and cellular carriers by using SS7 functions, the researchers say.

Some details:

The German researchers found two distinct ways to eavesdrop on calls using SS7 technology. In the first, commands sent over SS7 could be used to hijack a cell phone’s “forwarding” function—a service offered by many carriers. Hackers would redirect calls to themselves, for listening or recording, and then onward to the intended recipient of a call. Once that system was in place, the hackers could eavesdrop on all incoming and outgoing calls indefinitely, from anywhere in the world.

The second technique requires physical proximity but could be deployed on a much wider scale. Hackers would use radio antennas to collect all the calls and texts passing through the airwaves in an area. For calls or texts transmitted using strong encryption, such as is commonly used for advanced 3G connections, hackers could request through SS7 that each caller’s carrier release a temporary encryption key to unlock the communication after it has been recorded.

We’ll learn more when the researchers present their results.

Posted on December 19, 2014 at 6:41 AM • View Comments

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.