The communication over the gsm network is no longer secure. At the 26th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin the security researcher Karsten Nohl from Germany presented how to eavesdrop cell phones without high financial and technical costs.
The encryption algorithm(A5/1) of the gsm network is over 20 years old and can be hacked by non-professionals with relatively easy means in a short time. Nohl said that he and his helpers had successfully hacked the gsm-encryption algorithm in a distributed attack within three month and with 40 computers. The needed codebook with the rainbow tables is already distributed via file sharing networks. With this practical tutorial for hacking the gsm network the attacks will be considerably faster in the future.
Therefore the Chaos Computer Club asks for a stronger encryption of the gsm network from the industrial association GSMA. The GSMA denies this because they say that although hacking the gsm network is theoretically possible, it is practically improbable and the application of the presented method of hacking the gsm network is in many countries illegal.
This news is based on a german article which can be found here.
Tags: gsm, hack, mobile phones
