3 ms·

Feel like this is begging the question a bit. While a phone is a massive attack vector it is pretty non obvious that from a text message a user can have a steal

by on_ 11y ago

Feel like this is begging the question a bit. While a phone is a massive attack vector it is pretty non obvious that from a text message a user can have a stealth rootkit installed and persisted to all their devices.

conceit 11y ago
The firmware of the gsm-modem, called the baseband, can be updated by the service-providers at any-time. Triggering any kind of exploit of the user OS is trivial then. Heck, you don't even need to think as complicated as that, looking at the permissions granted to the most installed apps.
- on_ 11y ago
  Absolutely. The article didn't provide much color on it, but I am thinking about a <$20 pay as you go phone that is turned off, with the known information of simply a cellphone number. While the gov't has crazy access to these telco companies, there is really zero friction if this is universal. Scenario: If you infect 'target 0' you now have a seed to feed to your maliscious googleR00t bot, that just indexes a phone book and sends these root sms messages out. Possible/likely even to and from powered off phones. They could even do a badbios/thunderstrike-like attack on a laptop or otherwise airgapped computer. If you find one person who has that number in their phone, even if never turned on, when it does, it connects to the network. Broadcasts the location and data, and becomes a carrier of some pretty next-level malware. Now, if you think critically I guess the OTA phone attack thing is a conclusion you could draw. However, 'the Government' is a huge organization. The capabilities are clearly staggering and somewhat known, but who has access? Imagine if Edward Snowden, or someone like him, got the exploitDB and all the source? Who would know? The gov't can't admit it has zero days to every piece of technology and have packaged up these payloads into something as easy to use as a rails API or SMS message. That hacker for sure wouldn't let the public know because unknown vulns === big money. So, who is to say this hasn't happened, won't happen, or even how many people are 'legally[0]' allowed to use this in Virginia. [0]this word can be interpreted quite loosely.

by on_ 11y ago

conceit 11y ago

The firmware of the gsm-modem, called the baseband, can be updated by the service-providers at any-time. Triggering any kind of exploit of the user OS is trivial then. Heck, you don't even need to think as complicated as that, looking at the permissions granted to the most installed apps.

on_ 11y ago
Absolutely. The article didn't provide much color on it, but I am thinking about a <$20 pay as you go phone that is turned off, with the known information of simply a cellphone number. While the gov't has crazy access to these telco companies, there is really zero friction if this is universal. Scenario: If you infect 'target 0' you now have a seed to feed to your maliscious googleR00t bot, that just indexes a phone book and sends these root sms messages out. Possible/likely even to and from powered off phones. They could even do a badbios/thunderstrike-like attack on a laptop or otherwise airgapped computer. If you find one person who has that number in their phone, even if never turned on, when it does, it connects to the network. Broadcasts the location and data, and becomes a carrier of some pretty next-level malware. Now, if you think critically I guess the OTA phone attack thing is a conclusion you could draw. However, 'the Government' is a huge organization. The capabilities are clearly staggering and somewhat known, but who has access? Imagine if Edward Snowden, or someone like him, got the exploitDB and all the source? Who would know? The gov't can't admit it has zero days to every piece of technology and have packaged up these payloads into something as easy to use as a rails API or SMS message. That hacker for sure wouldn't let the public know because unknown vulns === big money. So, who is to say this hasn't happened, won't happen, or even how many people are 'legally[0]' allowed to use this in Virginia. [0]this word can be interpreted quite loosely.