At a recent Black Hat security conference in DC, two cyber-security techies showed how easy it is to wiretap another person’s cellphone.<\/p>\n
David Hulton and Steve Muller showed off a new method for breaking the GSM encryption used by major cellphone service providers to prevent eavesdropping on cellphone communications.<\/p>\n
Hulton and Muller say their method allows an eavesdropper to record conversations on cellphone networks from miles away and decode it within a half hour using just $1,000 in computer equipment.<\/p>\n
Hulton, an applications director for high-performance computing company Pico, and Muller, mobile security researcher for CellCrypt, plan to make their decryption method freely available to the general public public.<\/p>\n
However, they hope to start selling a faster version that can crack cellphone encryption in only 30 seconds. This premium version will cost between $200,000 and $500,000.<\/p>\n
As to the issue of eroding the privacy of cellphone users, Muller says that he and Hulton didn’t invent the hacking technology; they just brought attention to its vulnerabilities and made the technology public.<\/p>\n
According to Muller: “If governments or other people with millions of dollars can listen to your conversations right now, why shouldn’t your next-door neighbor?”<\/p>\n
David Pringle, a spokesman for the GSMA trade association, which represents 700 GSM cellphone carriers worldwide, stated that decrypting GSM still requires special technology and is more secure than a landline.<\/p>\n
As for intercepting conversations on Hulton and Muller’s cellphones, don’t bother. They don’t use them.<\/p>\n