Overview of AXE and Plex: http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/publications/0802.pdf http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/publications/0802.pdf IMS user manual: http://cryptome.org/ericss

Overview of AXE and Plex: http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/publications/0802.pdf http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/publications/0802.pdf IMS user manual: http://cryptome.org/ericsson-ims.zip http://cryptome.org/ericsson-ims.zip You can also find AXE simulators online, and various other downloads, if you are interested in developing your own rootkit. My take is that a government was involved in this break-in. The AXE systems have huge market share, so one well-written rootkit could be used over and over again. I am surprised that there was no a manufacturer response here asking network operators to perform independent checksum checks on all running switches (ie. using tools from a disk that is trusted, not the local tools which can be compromised). I am also surprised that the AXE OS doesn't have a better default 'tripwire' system. For it to happen on phone networks is scary - but rootkits for IOS (the cisco os) have been available for a long time now so intercepting Internet data is probably more common.