Study Shows The Internet Is Hugely Vulnerable To SIM Hijacking Attacks

from the ill-communication dept

U.S. Wireless carriers are coming under heavy fire for failing to protect their users from the practice of SIM hijacking. The practice usually involves conning or bribing a wireless employee to port a victim's cell phone number right out from underneath them, letting the attacker then pose as the customer to potentially devastating effect. Carriers are facing numerous lawsuits from victims who say attackers used the trick to first steal their identity, then millions in cryptocurrency, or even popular social media accounts.

Last week, six lawmakers, including Ron Wyden, wrote to the FCC to complain the agency isn't doing enough (read: anything) to pressure carriers into shoring up their flimsy security. This week, a group of Princeton researchers released a study showcasing how both traditional and prepaid wireless carriers remain incredibly vulnerable to such attacks despite several years worth of headlines. In the full study (pdf, hat tip ZDNet), the researchers showed how it was relatively easy to trick wireless company support employees into turning over far more private data than they should, helping to facilitate the illicit SIM swap:

"When providing incorrect answers to personal questions such as date of birth or billing ZIP code, [research assistants] would explain that they had been careless at signup, possibly having provided incorrect information, and could not recall the information they had used," researchers said, explaining the motives they provided to call center staff."

After failing the first two steps in confirming a caller's identity, wireless carriers then move on to a third confirmation option -- verifying the last two numbers called from the account. But researchers note that was easy to game as well:

"The research team says that an attacker could trick a victim into placing calls to specific numbers. For example, a scenario of "you won a prize; call here; sorry, wrong number; call here instead." After the attacker has tricked the SIM card owner into placing those two calls, they can use these details to call the telco's call center and carry out a SIM swap. Princeton researchers said they were able to trick all five US prepaid wireless carriers using this scenario."

Despite warning all five of the carriers they tested this trick on, four of the five still hadn't fixed their security gaps as of the study's publication. After showcasing how vulnerable mobile carriers are, the researchers took a closer look at what could be done once they had taken over a user's wireless accounts. As such they tested the multi-factor-authentication practices of 140 of the most popular services and sites, and found that 17 of those services had no systems in place to protect users from SIM hijacking (such as emailing users a one time password to confirm identity and verify the changes were actually requested).

Here's where, in a functional market with a functioning government, regulators would step in to pressure carriers to do more to actually protect consumers. Instead, the Trump FCC has spent the last three years rubber stamping every fleeting whim of the sector, including gutting most meaningful oversight of the sector, and rubber stamping massive mergers the majority of objective experts say will harm the market.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, ron wyden, scams, sim hijacking, sim swap, social engineering, wireless carriers

Wireless Carriers Hope You Won't Notice Their Location Data Scandal Makes The Facebook, Cambridge Fracas Look Like Amateur Hour

from the ill-communication dept

When the Facebook, Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, we noted that however bad you thought that scandal was (and it certainly was bad), it couldn't hold a candle to the routine privacy abuses that have occurred in the telecom sector for the better part of the last few decades. From charging consumers hundreds of additional dollars annually to opt out of snoopvertising, to the use of private user financial data to justify providing even worse customer service, the broadband industry has long been the poster child for privacy abuses without much in the way of practical public penalty.

It's just as bad on the wireless side, where carriers like Verizon have routinely have been caught modifying user data packets to track users around the internet (without telling them or providing opt out tools), and selling user browsing, app-usage and location data to everyone that comes calling. That's before you even touch on the fact that these companies are practically bone grafted to the NSA and other intelligence services.

As such, we noted how if you were part of the #DeleteFacebook set but were still rolling around using a stock phone on an incumbent carrier network, you failed to understand that Facebook's casual treatment of private consumer data was the cross-industry norm, not some errant exception.

The Location Smart and Securus scandals (which exposed the data of 200 million cell users) quickly proved our point. Thanks to lax handling of private location data by cellular carriers and third-party brokers, those scandals quickly highlighted how anonymized data isn't really anonymous, and this data can and is routinely abused by everybody in this chain of dysfunction (including law enforcement). Oddly, even in the wake of those reports, people still seemed to view the Cambridge, Facebook fracas as somehow far more scandalous, most likely because of that particular story's political undertones.

Clearly hoping to get ahead of the scandal before the press, public and regulators realized the depths of this particular rabbit hole, Verizon proclaimed that the company would be ending all sales of location data to third party data brokers. The company announced the decision (pdf) in a letter responding to inquiries by Senator Ron Wyden, who had begun to apply some pressure on mobile carriers. From the letter:

"We conducted a comprehensive review of our location aggregator program. As a result of this review, we are initiating a process to terminate our existing agreements for the location aggregator program. We will not enter into new location aggregation arrangements unless and until we are comfortable that we can adequately protect our customers’ location data through technological advancements and/or other practices."

Verizon announced it would be suspending all data sales to location data brokers like LocationSmart and Zumigo, which the company acknowledged sold that data in turn to a roster of more than 75 different companies. And, in short, it's promising to suspend such data sales at least until it can ensure that data is actually secure (what an incredibly novel idea). Who'll actually confirm this data is secure before the program is restarted isn't clear; you'll apparently just have to trust a company with a several-decades history of severe privacy violations and blatant false statements.

Like the Facebook scandal, there wasn't much in place to really ensure that often real-time data remained protected, something made clear when the LocationSmart scandal revealed that one Missouri Sheriff routinely (ab)used the system to spy on Judges and fellow law enforcement officers without much legitimate justification (or pesky warrants). In subsequent statements to the press, Verizon has tried to argue that the company quickly took steps to thwart the abuse:

"When these issues were brought to our attention, we took immediate steps to stop it. Customer privacy and security remain a top priority for our customers and our company. We stand-by that commitment to our customers."

But again, this was Verizon only acting after the horses escaped from the barn, suggesting that no, privacy and security was not a top priority. If Verizon's self-auditing was so stellar, it seems curious it never self-identified the potential for the kind of abuse the LocationSmart and Securus scandals revealed. Or the self-audits did reveal problems, but the money made from selling this data made actually fixing them a low priority. Knowing Verizon pretty well, it seems clear it wouldn't be taking this kind of financial hit if its lawyers didn't realize the company was potentially facing some pretty steep penalties here.

One of the key problems in location and other data sharing is that wireless cell carriers have found a way to effectively operate outside any meaningful privacy guidelines by perpetually passing the onus for user consent down a long line of location data aggregators. Blake Reid, an associate clinical professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, perfectly captures the problem in comments made to Brian Krebs:

"The carriers basically have arrangements with these location aggregators that contractually say, ‘You agree not to use this access we provide you without getting customer consent’,” Reid said. “Then that aggregator has a relationship with another aggregator, and so on. So what we then have is this long chain of trust where no one has ever consented to the provision of the location information, and yet it ends up getting disclosed anyhow."

Verizon's obviously trying to pre-empt privacy regulation before we collectively realize current oversight makes the wild west seem downright domesticated. The company has long fought tooth and nail against any kind of consumer privacy protections, stating back in 2008 that federal privacy rules aren't necessary because "public shame" would keep the company honest. More recently, Verizon successfully lobbied the FCC to kill modest broadband privacy rules that would have prevented precisely this kind of scandal from happening by requiring greater transparency -- and that users opt-in to more sensitive data sharing.

None of that is to say that regulatory action is the only solution here, or that this particular Congress could even accomplish such a task. But it's also pretty clear that sooner or later, the pinky swears and winks currently passing for oversight of the telecom sector's treatment of your private data aren't going to quite cut it.

Shortly after Verizon's announcement AT&T stated that it too had suspended location data sales to third-party brokers (for all the same reasons). Sprint followed suit. T-Mobile, which cultivates a reputation as a more consumer-friendly wireless carrier, belatedly brought up the rear, initially likely wary of highlighting any missteps as it seeks regulatory approval for its looming competition eroding megamerger. But again, most of these promises were somewhat murky in scope (T-Mobile's promise to improve, for example, was entirely devoid of substance and somehow never reached Wyden's office).

With this data having bounced around so many partners with so little transparency or oversight, you can be pretty sure we haven't heard the end of this story. And while wireless carriers would very much like the public and press to believe that they've fixed the privacy problems that plague the telecom sector, several decades of evidence to the contrary -- and the press and public's general tone deafness to the scope of this particular problem -- suggest any meaningful reckoning is still likely some time away.

Filed Under: data, data brokers, privacy, wireless carriers
Companies: at&t, cambridge analytica, sprint, t-mobile, verizon

Wireless Carrier Abuse Of Location Data Makes The Facebook, Cambridge Scandal Look Like Amateur Hour

from the we-need-outrage-symmetry dept

As we've noted a few times now, however bad the recent Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal was, the nation's broadband providers have routinely been engaged in much worse behavior for decades. Yes, the Cambridge and Facebook scandal was bad (especially Facebook threatening to sue news outlets that exposed it), but the behavior they were engaging in is the norm, not the exception. And watching people quit Facebook while still using a stock cellphone (which lets carriers track your every online whim and offline movement) was arguably comedic.

As the recent Securus and LocationSmart scandal highlights, wireless carriers pretty routinely sell your location data to a laundry list of companies, governments, and organizations with only fleeting oversight. And while some lawmakers are pressuring the FCC to more closely investigate the scandal (which resulted in the exposure of wireless location data of some 200 million users in the U.S. and Canada), few expect the same FCC that just killed net neutrality to actually do anything about it.

When the previous FCC tried to pass some pretty modest privacy protections last year requiring that ISPs be more transparent about all of this, ISPs quickly took advantage of a cash-compromised Congress to scuttle those protections before they could even take effect:

This collective apathy to routine telecom sector privacy abuses has been going on for decades. You might recall that multiple ISPs were accused years ago of collecting and selling consumer clickstream data. When they were pressed for details, many simply either denied doing it or refused to respond. As more sophisticated network gear like deep-packet inspection emerged, ISPs began tracking and selling your online browsing habits down to the millisecond, some even charging users extra if they wanted to protect their own privacy.

But things got immeasurably more profitable once wireless carriers began tracking user location data, which they now sell to everyone from urban planners to government agencies. Companies like Verizon Wireless were subsequently caught covertly modifying wireless user data packets to track users around the internet without telling them. It took security researchers two years to even discover this was happening and another six months of public shame before Verizon even provided an opt out option (a more powerful version of the tech is now being used by Verizon's Oath advertising brand).

And yet even in the wake of the LocationSmart fracas, which literally exposed the private data of nearly everybody in America, we're still somehow only seeing a fraction of the media, regulatory or public outrage we saw during the Facebook and Cambridge kerfuffle:

"You might think that the major wireless carriers would be facing intense pressure to account for their lax handling of customers’ data. You might think the story would be all over newspapers’ front pages and cable news. You might think their CEOs would be hounded by the media, as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was after the Cambridge Analytica story broke. You might think they’d be dragooned into testifying before Congress.

You might think that, if you expected a reaction commensurate to the one that accompanied the Cambridge Analytica revelations. And it’s conceivable that it will still happen. But so far, there has been none of that."

It remains odd that the press and public still don't realize how deep this particular rabbit hole goes. And whereas the Cambridge scandal made headlines for months, the location data scandal has barely registered a fraction of the collective outrage in media coverage or in DC. Meanwhile, wireless carriers are effectively refusing to even acknowledge they work with companies like LocationSmart, and there's little to no indication accountability is heading their direction anytime soon.

Filed Under: location data, privacy, wireless carriers
Companies: cambridge analytica, facebook, locationsmart, securus