5 ms·
I wish govt would put a condition on the mobile carriers to fix SS7 vulnerabilities.
by welder 11mo ago
I wish govt would put a condition on the mobile carriers to fix SS7 vulnerabilities.
- defraudbah 11mo agothis would require some encryption and still can be intercepted. Any ideas how to fix that?
- welder 11mo agoNo, I'm talking about anyone with SS7 access basically has root on the whole network and can query for locations of any phone number anonymously... no audit trail, no access control. https://youtu.be/xfWyU5iXJ3I?t=860 https://youtu.be/xfWyU5iXJ3I?t=860 https://youtu.be/wVyu7NB7W6Y https://youtu.be/wVyu7NB7W6Y
- Hikikomori 11mo agoWhy when we have bandaids like ss7 firewalls.
- defraudbah 11mo agoright, that's how police and criminals do it, I am aware how it works, what I wonder is how do you fix it, replace the protocol? encrypt it?
- _ink_ 11mo agoYeah, but how could their secret services then snoop on everyone?
- Iolaum 11mo agoupdate to the latest software
- kristofferR 11mo agoIsn't that simply fixed by shutting down the old 2G and 3G networks, like is happening in a lot of countries now?
- supertrope 11mo agoNo. SS7 predates cellphones. It's the legacy control plane for the PSTN (public switched telephone network). It was never designed for security since it originally never crossed corporate boundaries as everyone had to use the monopoly provider. (Except for international calls).
- kristofferR 11mo agoI admittedly don't know that much about it, but the googling I did indicated the SS7 is only active when you roam/call to legacy networks with 2G/3G that aren't all-IP?
- supertrope 11mo agoEven when the phones on both ends use IP calling technology, the interconnection between phone companies is usually not IP.
- kristofferR 11mo agoFrom what I've read that tends to change when the phone companies in question have shut off 2G and 3G though. The only reason to keep using SS7 is for intercompatibility with legacy networks who still have 2G or 3G devices on them.
- alerighi 11mo agoYou can't shut down 2G, because there are a lot of devices, mainly embedded systems like alarms, lift emergency call button, GPS trackers, etc. that still use 2G. Also 2G is the only reliable network connection in a lot of areas that are not otherwise reached by 3G/4G/5G, mainly because a 2G connection is more tolerant to low signal and noise, and also is low frequency, thus 2G is the only option available in situations such as on top of mountains and stuff. And finally there is still a lot of people, maybe elders, that don't have/want a smartphone (mainly because they are more complex to use etc.) and still use an old Nokia with 2G networks (they only need to call or send SMS in the end). Also: VoLTE is not a thing since a lot of years, and probably there are even a ton of smartphones out there that does not support it (and thus switch back to 2G/3G to place voice calls).
- UltraSane 11mo agoI get 20 to 30 spam calls a day now.
- Mashimo 11mo agoIn EU? Where are you located?
- kergonath 11mo agoI’m in France. I don’t get 30 a day, but at least 2 to 5. I automatically ignore unknown callers and my voice mail message basically says to send a SMS instead.
- UltraSane 11mo agoMy Android phone has a feature to not ring unless the number is in my contacts OR they call twice in 15 minutes and my voice mail message tells people to call me twice to reach me. The scammers never do.
- Mashimo 11mo agoWow, I have about 2 or 3 per year. It's always a robot voice telling me the police is looking for me.
- UltraSane 11mo agoI'm in the US.
- srg0 11mo agoAt some point this year I was getting 14-20 spam calls per hour. I'm in Italy.
- UltraSane 11mo agoWow. Did you have to get a new number?
- adrr 11mo agoCarriers will never fix issues that they have a revenue stream off of. They sell services to detect call forwarding attacks, sim swap attacks etc to banks and other services. Its like robocalling, fraud texts and calls you received. Carriers can't sell services to filter them if they fix the issues that allow these to happen in the first place. Way to fix it is to make the carrier liable. It will be fixed instantly.