The threshold for private individuals may acquire false base stations, are becoming lower. Online now sold fake base stations to a little over 10,000 dollars.
– It is also possible for a person with a certain technical knowledge to build one on your own – with parts that can be purchased, writes Stephanie Pell, professor by Army Cyber Institute at the US Military Academy West Point.
In a blog on the website Wired.com, written just a few months ago, she corrects attention to what has become a highly topical issue in Norway after Aftenposten Disclosure: Monitoring of mobile calls.
Can shut compound and gather data
The so-called IMSI catch holders can be very effective. It’s advanced hardware that sends out signals that lurk phones to believe that they are part of a legitimate cellular network. The most sophisticated models – including going to be bought by the police in London – can both be used to shut off telephone connections and collect data from thousands of users within a particular area.
– They can also be used forcing phones to reveal their unique identity codes, which can then be used to track a person’s movements, writes journalist Ryan Gallagher on the website Future Tense.
– Used to uncritical mass surveillance
A of the organizations that the past year has focused on the false base stations, the British group Privacy International. Organization surveillance expert Richard Tynan explains on the website Broadsheet what they can be used for and how they work – and that IMSI catch holders are becoming more sophisticated.
– IMSI catchere used by a number of authorities and private around the world to uncritical mass surveillance. They are used to infiltrate the cellular network with one goal: To capture the unique SIM card number that identifies your mobile – and thus the owner, called “International Mobile Subscriber Identity” – hence the name IMSI cachers, he explains.
Used to uncover protesters in Ukraine
IMSI catch forwards lures all phones within a certain area to connect to it. Thus, one can identify who located there. The equipment must have been effective in connection with demonstrations. Among other things, it has been used in Ukraine to reveal who participated in protests in the country.
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Mobile Espionage explained: How an IMSI-catcher
But it can also be used for far more advanced purposes, such as forcing phones to turn off any encryption, reveal the exact location of mobile user and control the content of calls, text messages and data sent.
– The false base stations emit signals containing information that captures the activity of mobile phones in the area, when they send or receive a text message telling Tynan .
Fearing espionage and blackmail
Norwegian authorities are not the first ones closest to have been taken by surprise by this equipment presence. These false base stations has received increased attention in several countries, primarily the United States. But also in countries such as the Czech Republic has media put the spotlight on their use. The Czech police have told the radio station Radio Prague that they have revealed the use of false base stations across the country. But no traffickers have been arrested.
– We assume that firms can use them to spy on each other, said a former chief of the Czech intelligence police radio station. There were also fears that the equipment could be used for blackmail.
In the United States it was Newsweek as June this year put the spotlight on the topic. It resulted in the federal US administrative agency that regulates telecommunications in the country – Federal Communications Commission – put down a group to combat illegal use of IMSI catchere.
No one will say that they have equipment
Because of the motivation to use such equipment – that it should be secret – it’s hard to say how widespread the use of equipment has worldwide. Monitoring expert and journalist Ryan Gallagher believes, however, that police forces in most major capitals have the equipment – especially in cities where there are fears of terrorism and other serious crimes.
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