After last year's scandal in which the NSA was accused of exploiting the mobile phones of hundreds of millions of users and intercepting data, information that appeared today indicates that the problem is much bigger. According to the famous Edward Snowden, those from the NSA and GCHQ (British spy service) succeeded to obtain decryption keys for SIM cards. Using our two spy agencies can intercept phone calls and internet traffic made by anyone, at any time, the problem being a major one for mobile phone users and operators.
Gemalto said on Friday it was investigating a report US and British spies had hacked its systems to steal the privacy-protecting encryption keys in the chips it makes for mobile phones. The hack by the National Security Agency (NSA) and UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) allowed the agencies to monitor a large portion of voice and data mobile communications around the world without permission from governments and telecom companies, according to the report.
Gemalto, the largest manufacturer of SIM cards for mobile phones, has self-reported and indicated that it is investigating the accusations made by Snowden, but will probably not confirm the problem. The even bigger problem is that Gemalto produces some smart chips for bank cards and biometric passports, so that the NSA and GCHQ can decrypt them as well. The information itself is not really that hard to believe considering that the NSA has illegally taken data from just about anywhere, so the focus on SIM cards is easy to understand.
The documents that confirm the fact that the agencies took over the encryption keys of the SIM cards date from 2010, so the problem is a very old one, but unfortunately it will never be solved.
