InsightaaS: Naked Security is a news/blog site hosted by security vendor Sophos. In this post, Paul Ducklin – described as a “passionate security proselytiser” – writes about a paper presented at a recent USENIX Security Forum by three German researchers, discussing how a single modified mobile phone could deliver a denial of service (DoS) attack against a targeted subscriber, and how a ring of 11 phones could disrupt mobile communications in a major city.
When you think of “signal jamming,” you probably imagine some kind of fine steel mesh that blocks out radio transmissions altogether, or a source of electromagnetic noise that interferes enough to make legitimate communication impossible.
But a paper presented by a trio of German researchers at the recent USENIX Security Symposium reveals a much more subtle approach to jamming mobile phone calls.
They were able to convert a single mobile phone into a denial of service (DoS) device that could be turned against another subscriber, perhaps wherever they roamed through a whole town or city…
Read the entire post: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/08/29/anatomy-of-a-dropped-call-how-to-jam-a-city-with-11-customised-mobile-phones/
