Last week I brought you a story on UK and US intelligence types hacking into a company called Gemalto who makes among other things, SIM cards for mobile phone carriers, and gaining the ability to eavesdrop on millions of smartphone users because of the hack. Today, Gemalto came out with a statement that basically says that the SIM cards that they produce are still secure despite this hack:
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, is devoting the necessary resources to investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques. Initial conclusions already indicate that Gemalto SIM products (as well as banking cards, passports and other products and platforms) are secure and the Company doesn’t expect to endure a significant financial prejudice.
The company does plan to hold a press conference to provide more details on this in Paris at 10:30 am on the 25th of February. We’ll see at that point how the company explains the fact that their SIM cards are secure despite this hack. Personally, I am dubious. But I’m willing to let them lay out their evidence to back up their case.
Gemalto To Planet Earth: You Have Nothing To Worry About
Posted in Commentary with tags Hacked, UK, US on February 25, 2015 by itnerdAs promised, Gemalto held a press conference today to respond to a report that they were hacked by U.K. and U.S. intelligence types and encryption codes that would let them spy on smartphone users were stolen. Now News.com has a pretty comprehensive report. But it can be summed up like this:
“The attacks against Gemalto only breached its office networks and could not have resulted in a massive theft of SIM encryption keys,” Gemalto said in a statement at a press conference held in response to a report in the Intercept alleging a massive theft by the US National Security Agency and UK Government Communications Headquarters. The report said millions of SIM card encryption keys had been stolen through the joint NSA and GCHQ operation.
Gemalto then lays out why this is the case. And they also let the world know that 2G networks would be the ones under threat. Both 3G and 4G networks are apparently safe. But the core message is this: There’s nothing to see here. Move along.
Though, they did let this cat out of the bag:
However, Gemalto said, it appears that other SIM card manufacturers were targeted, so privacy and security concerns can’t be dispelled. For example, the spy agency documents pointed to 300,000 keys stolen from a Somali carrier that isn’t a Gemalto customer. Indeed, that’s the case for four of the 12 carriers identified in the documents, Gemalto said.
Lovely. Clearly this story isn’t over and neither is the concern that this will generate.
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