Your government is spying on you? A dangerous SIM card endangers a billion smartphones

While the plots of governments spying on their people have inspired movies and TV shows like Person of Interest, what about the truth? The scariest nightmare of people seems to have become a reality when a cybersecurity company has revealed evidence that endangers one billion smartphone users in at least 30 countries.

According to AdaptiveMobile Security, a vulnerability called Simjacker has been discovered in SIM cards used to track users, intercept calls between other harmful activities. The company's researchers estimate that more than a billion smartphones are likely to be attacked.

"This vulnerability is currently actively exploited by a specific private company that works with governments to monitor individuals, and Simjacker and its associated exploits represent a huge leap in complexity and sophistication from previous attacks on mobile backbone networks. The main attack of Simjacker SMS containing a specific type of spyware code sent on a mobile phone, which then asks the integrated SIM card on the phone to "take over" the mobile phone to recover and execute sensitive commands ", have indicated the researchers.

The nature of the attack on its scale is disturbing. The researchers have not identified the companies or governments that are behind the construction of Simjacker, but said that they could be "a large professional surveillance company with very sophisticated capabilities in signaling and handsets ". What is worrying is that vulnerability has been exploited for two years.

The blog article, detailing the properties of Simjacker, indicates that hackers are using the technology of a SIM card called S @ T Browser (abbreviation for SIMalliance Toolbox Browser). This technology is generally used to browse the Internet using the SIM card, which is turned into a deadly weapon. Hackers can perform actions such as opening a browser and redirect to malicious sites to install malware on the phone, make calls and play ringtones.

"Simjacker has also been exploited to perform many other types of attacks against private individuals and mobile operators, such as fraud, fraudulent calls, information leaks, denials of service, and business activities. Spying, "added the researchers.

The researchers noted that the firm had decided to keep more details on the attack for the moment. But he will give more details at the next conference on viruses, to be held in London on 3 October. Stay on the lookout for updates.