Last week news broke that ESD America, which manufacturers the $3,500 Cryptophone (a security hardened Samsung Galaxy S3) has discovered 19 rogue cell towers across the United States which were hoovering up SMS and data from phones as well as intercepting calls.
ESD America found these towers as its Cryptophone alerts users when calls are being forced over unencrypted bandwidth via 2G from a nameless cell tower (cell towers from big telcos are always named).
ESD America’s CEO, Les Goldsmith, is unsure of why there are so many rogue base stations (called interceptors) within the United States but is concerned about the high number of rogue base stations found by Cryptophone users.
“Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated,” Goldsmith said in an interview with Popular Science. “One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found 8 different interceptors on that trip. We even found one [in the vicinity of] South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”
Goldsmith said that the placement of towers appears to be seemingly random, with the exception of two: the one mentioned near the casino and a few more near military bases around the country.
Who’s spying on whom?
For the most part, cell phones are an inherently secure way to communicate. Connections between cell phone and tower are usually encrypted, through the exact encryption protocol must be agreed upon during the initial connection (handshake). As with the communication standard, the quality of encryption varies wildly.
Rogue base stations simply broadcast their signal at a level higher than nearby base stations, thereby drowning them out and forcing nearby phones to connect to them. Once connected, the rogue base station will act as a man in the middle passing along calls and text messages to the network after intercepting all of them — or just a specific few from targeted phones.
One comment in the press dismissed the idea that these towers had some sort of nefarious intention behind them. The most likely explanation, according to the source, was that these were simply towers purchased by private individuals or groups to boost cell reception in areas underserved by big telco.
But the possibility that these towers may be the tools of an intelligence agency or another group for industrial or state espionage should not be dismissed. The vast majority of people would dismiss their cell phone dropping to 2G, or many other irregularities, as simply the product of poor reception from their telco. While guardians of secrets would have protocols in place to avoid talking about them over the air, others within the military or academic industrial complex might also have access to this information that while not classified as secret is still sensitive and would aid those engaged in intelligence gathering against a target.
As the placement of towers across the United States is seemingly random, it’s difficult to discern a specific target. This could be, however, a trial run to see if it was an effective use of resources. While for most people things like the Cryptophone will be an unnecessary expense, but for those concerned about the safety of their information of the network security-hardened smartphones like the Cryptophone will be a necessary tool to do business.
