Hacker breaks into GSM network

Robert Clark | August 02, 2010

telecomseurope.net

A hacker has showed how to break into a GSM network using open source software and gear costing less than $1500 (€1,148).

Chris Paget demonstrated the hack at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas, using two antennas to spoof AT&T and T-Mobile base stations, connecting dozens of cellphones in the room.

“As far as your cell phones are concerned, I'm now indistinguishable from AT&T,” he said.

The device tricks nearby cell phones into believing it is a legitimate cell phone tower and routing their calls through it.

“GSM is broken — it's just plain broken,” Paget added.

The hacker said that while recipients see caller IDs that differ from the cell numbers of the people calling them, the details displayed could easily be fixed with a software patch.

Paget’s is not the first “IMSI catcher” – police and security bodies around the world use expensive commercial systems to tap into GSM networks.

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