Communications security

Hackers Only Need Your Number To Know Everything About You

A vulnerability in cellular communication systems demonstrated in 2014 is still unpatched, allowing hackers to track your location, read your SMS messages, and record your phonecalls. To do so, all a hacker needs is your phone number.

The hack was first demonstrated by German security researcher Karsten Nohl and relies on a practically ancient set of telephony protocols called Signalling System No 7. SS7 which was developed in 1975 and is an international standard in telephony, now used to “broker between mobile phone networks,” The Guardian reports.

SS7 is operating in the background to facilitate communication between different mobile networks, translating phone numbers, transmitting SMS messages, tracking billing information, etc. The protocol is poorly protected, and this allows a hacker to perform quite a lot of things they shouldn’t be able to and all with very little effort.