How the NSA can 'turn on' your phone remotely

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/06/technology/security/nsa-turn-on-phone/index.html

by sunilkumarc • 12 years ago

57 28 12 years ago

money.cnn.com

jloughry• 12 years ago

New application of an old technique: spoofing the "trusted path"; in the old days by means of a fake login prompt to harvest passwords, today with a fake "slide to power off" that blanks the screen and makes the phone play dead but with its radio continuing to operate.

Zigurd2• 12 years ago

This article contains some likely disinformation. For example, there is no "mode" that will prevent a phone with a charged battery from processing commands to the baseband.

Their second suggestion, "create a barrier" is hard to test for reliability. Just because your phone thinks it has too-poor signal to connect a call doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly isolated and can't be a room bug.

Pulling the battery is a reliable way to make the phone safe.

nthj• 12 years ago

Just because your phone thinks it has too-poor signal to connect a call doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly isolated and can't be a room bug.

And/or recording audio to send home later.

chippy2• 12 years ago

disinformation or misinformation?

Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately

tritium3• 12 years ago

No. You've got it backwards.

Disinformation is prevention of awareness (not informed at all).

Misinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately (informed with mistakes).

...but I see what you did there.

Spearchucker• 12 years ago

Everything is relative. You can track cellphones that are switched off anyway, because companies like CellSense (http://www.cellsensegroup.com/) make detectors that track moving ferromagnetic objects. While CellSense's sweet spot is prisons, there are others who's use cases are more imaginative.

As always, if you're targeted, you're probably toast no matter what you do, short of going off-grid in a remote but populated area with absolutely no tech on or near you, and cash, no plastic.

Theodores• 12 years ago

When cell phones first started to become popular it was strange to see how you could buy them without having to provide much in the way of ID, particularly with PAYG phones. One would have thought that it would have made more sense to have a reasonable amount of identity checks going on, after all we wouldn't want to have the bad guys able to do things with mobile phones,would we?

However, if all of the phones are bugged anyway, if they all work like tracking devices and if the carriers (e.g. Vodafone) are completely happy with being complicit with that, then it makes sense to have phones available for a low price and with not lot of background checks going on.

The only safe way to use a phone (if you have something to hide) is to not have one and social engineer others into 'lending' you there phone on a fake pretext of your battery being dead etc. and then to call a number where there is no expectation of bugging going on.

abritishguy• 12 years ago

Such a clickbait title.

dang• 12 years ago

Happy to change it if anyone can suggest a better.

Zigurd2• 12 years ago

It's a sloppy article, but the title is apropos.

dm22• 12 years ago

Does anyone have any more information on what is actually possible from a malicious tower?

Below is all I could find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcKk8R0LFI

http://www.pcworld.com/article/216842/coming_soon_a_new_way_...

http://openbts.org/

Is anyone else cautious when receiving free electronics? I'm always suspicious that it could be bugged by a rival company (from another country) or possess malware such as http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429394/placeraider-the-...

Also, this seems dangerous: http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/security/drone-ph...

a1a• 12 years ago

Second question: I recently spoke with a guy working right now on analyzing off-the-shelf usb-sticks from all kinds of vendors. He called it "night-shift malware" and his advice was to fdisk the hell out of all devices before even considering to use it. This might be old news(?), but my point is that it's not only free electronics you should worry about. Of course free electronics contains another security aspect as these might be used to attack you specifically while night-shift stuff is directed at "as many as possible".

Last article: This is why you should put tape over your smartphone cam. Imagine what criminals (ex. burglars) could do using such technology. Correct me if I'm wrong here -- but I find it surprising that most people care to put tape over their laptop cam but not on their smartphone, why is this?

IvyMike• 12 years ago

Laptops often have a good view of the room.

Cell phones often have a good view of the inside of a pocket.

Nitpicker's corner: Your usage patterns may differ.

tmosleyIII• 12 years ago

You can probably take a look at some AT commands to see what all is possible: http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gts/07/0707/05.00.00_60/gsm...

As far as how easy, you just need the right hardware and software.

jimhefferon• 12 years ago

Phones and laptops should have a slide switch, a hardware switch, to turn off the mic. I can cover the camera but I can't turn off the mic.

Istof2• 12 years ago

speakers can also be used as a microphones...

dm22• 12 years ago

I was skeptical about this at first but it seems true: http://www.zyra.org.uk/sp-mic.htm

Even the accelerometer in a phone can be used to record keystrokes from a keyboard. http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligenc...

Even WiFi can potentially be hacked to map/pinpoint people in a room/building.

Must be a fun time to be a spy with everyone putting numerous bugs, sensors, and cameras in their work and home willingly.

s7an4o• 12 years ago

We have the blackphone. Having a blacklaptop sound like a good idea. Maybe Implementing hardware cam & mic switch.

zw123456• 12 years ago

I can tell you with certainty from my experience in the field that phones, in particular smart phones, can be turned on remotely, that is common knowledge in the industry. The only way to prevent it is to remove the battery which is not possible on all phones. I think a cool product would be a replacement battery that had a hard on/off switch like a magnetic reed switch built in and if you put a magnet on that spot it would disconnect the power.

Istof2• 12 years ago

You might be able to test if it was secretly kept ON by checking battery levels...

How the NSA can 'turn on' your phone remotely

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