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installed remotely. Common criminal use for this type of attack includes industrial espionage,
identity and data theft, domestic violence and stalking.

This brings us to an important tip to immediately improve your security protocols:

If you or your organization lists cell phone numbers on your business cards, immediately stop
using them. Dispose of them as you would other sensitive information and have them reprinted
without the cell phone numbers on them. It’s time to acknowledge that your cell phone is a
powerful computer that is loaded with sensors and strapped to a wireless router and a radio
none of which you have much control over. Your cell phone number has really become your cell
phone’s “network address” (think IP Address); it should be treated as such.

Office phone systems usually have a forwarding feature as a standard feature and it’s really
time to put it to use; only give out your desk phone number and have the office phone forward
your calls to your cell phone. This methodology for network address management should sound
familiar to information security professionals.

We’re going to step the skill level and budget up a notch now and discuss how a person can
access a smartphone, bypass encryption, track its movement and monitor its activity and data
by using a piece of hardware called an “IMSI catcher”. IMSI stands for International Mobile
Subscriber Identity and it is the primary identifier for the subscriber of cellular service; this
number is typically tied directly to whoever pays the phone bill. The function of IMSI catchers is
to appear to be the best cell phone tower in the area (known as cell tower spoofing) so that
phones within range of the IMSI catcher attempt to connect to it.

Commercially available under names like “Stingray, “Hailstorm” and “Gossamer,” these units are
extremely mobile and are typically used by law enforcement. Due to their compact size
(Gossamer is as compact as a large walkie-talkie), the hardware can also be easily used from a
vehicle to monitor phone location as well as intercept communication, eavesdrop, deny service
to a phone and more. Stingray is the widest known of these and “stingray” has even entered the
vernacular as an over-arching term to describe this type of hardware.

Law enforcement agencies using handheld models for “official use” (and anyone else
“unofficially”) can walk among a group of people and harvest identifying information about ever
phone around them. A larger model could be put inside a delivery van, parked several miles
from an office building and still have the ability to eavesdrop on the phones inside without
anyone inside the building ever knowing it. This capability presents a challenge for every
business that demands confidentiality in any of its operations. Costs of these units via the
commercial market run between the low five figures to over one-hundred thousand dollars
based on features and capabilities.

While the price tag and marketing regulations of commercially available IMSI catchers may put
them out of reach for many, wireless security experts have demonstrated their own version, with
near-equal capabilities of commercial units and produced for less than two-thousand dollars. At
this point anyone with a smattering of technical skill and some internet search time can use off-
the-shelf components to build an IMSI catcher powerful enough to rival commercial models.
9 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – October 2014 Edition
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