No one and no mobile phone is safe anymore as god-damned hackers have modified a protocol developed in 1975 that makes it possible for them to access your phone by only knowing your telephone number.
With this new method, hackers can gain access to your calls, texts, websites, passwords, locations, routes and emails.
According to a report, “An attacker can track a person’s location based on mobile phone mast triangulation, read their sent and received text messages, and log, record and listen into their phone calls, simply by using their phone number as an identifier.”
The terrifying hack is made possible due to an error from a giant telecom network called Signal System 7 (SS7) also known as C7 in the UK, which is used by mobile carriers around the world to route calls and text messages.
By tapping into the network interchange – the hackers can intercept details including number translation, SMS transfer, billing and more.
It doesn’t matter how secure your smartphone is, because the flaw is held within the mobile phone network interconnection system which means it is unavoidable.
The hack was first brought to light by a security researcher Karsten Nohl during a 2014 hacker convention in Hamburg.
At the CBS show 60 Minutes this month, investigators who wished to confirm that the problem remains unsolved after a year of finding there’s an error with the system, mailed an Apple iPhone to congressman Ted Lieu who is a member of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology.
The US congressman agreed to use the phone – knowing it would be hacked by Security Research Labs in Berlin.
Using only a phone number, researchers based in Berlin were able to pinpoint Mr Lieu’s movements within Los Angeles. They also picked up all this messages and recorded calls between the congressman and his staff.
In the past, Edward Snowden revealed that the US and UK government were conducting mass snooping on their citizens by invading their privacy under the cloak of greater good. And current reports say they probably still are, considering that all a hacker needs to peep into your private lives now is only your phone number.
The real problem is there’s no way consumers can stop this hack. Even if you choose to turn off your phone, it would make no sense since the sniffing is from the network system already in the phone. What the heck! The make or price of your phone has nothing to do with this.
No one, and just no phone is safe. Do we stop using phones entirely? No, there’s a way out.
What you can do:
Keep your communications private by using encrypted messaging and calling apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessages and FaceTime.
