Mr Briggs’s comments to the US Federal Communications Commission put the scope of the SS 7 problem into sharper focus. “ Overall ,” he said, the incidents he reported were “just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of SS 7 and Diameter-based location and tracking exploits that have been used successfully.” US mobile operators are sensibly eliminating SS 7 from their networks, but to varying degrees they all still have roaming connections to the rest of the world, where the protocol remains ubiquitous. Moreover, while the new Diameter protocol is an improvement in many ways, it still “has many of the same vulnerabilities” as SS 7, Mr McDaid argued, “and is worse in some ways.”
One reason telecom companies have failed to address the problem is that most attackers are politically motivated rather than commercially motivated. Surveillance tends to focus on industry email list a very small number of high-value targets. “Attackers typically aren’t looking to harm the operation of the mobile network,” Mr. McDaid notes. Because the impact is on the individual rather than the company, he says, “sometimes the incentives to do protection aren’t completely aligned.” Mobile carriers need to monitor their networks, update software and regularly conduct “penetration tests,” exercises in which they subject their networks to simulated attacks, he says.
from SS7-based interception (but not location tracking) by using end-to-end encrypted apps like WhatsApp, Signal, or iMessage. But even these can be bypassed by spyware that takes control of a device, recording keystrokes and screen shots. In April, Apple warned users in 92 countries that they had been targeted by a “mercenary spyware attack.” On May 1, Amnesty International published a report showing how “a murky ecosystem of surveillance vendors, brokers, and resellers” from Israel, Greece, Singapore, and Malaysia have put powerful spyware in the hands of several state agencies in Indonesia.