
Why satellite cell phones aren’t as reliable as we thought
A new study published by the US Government Accountability Office finds that satellite cell phone networks are no longer reliable enough to protect consumers from cell phone tower spoofing.
The report was released in response to a series of attacks on cellular phone networks by hackers, in which a hacker remotely hijacks an infected phone’s data and sends it to a hacker who can take it to an unauthorized location, either through a malicious link or a denial-of-service attack.
The researchers found that the attacks, which began in 2016, were a lot more difficult to stop than most people had previously thought.
The attack rate jumped from about 15 per day to 50 per day, but it also dropped by 20% as attacks became less common.
A lot of these attacks didn’t even require the attacker to gain access to the device or to the network, but rather a remote hacker could send a malicious attachment or even a message to the phone.
The result was that cell phone operators now have to deploy more defenses against these types of attacks, such as using new technologies like encryption to help protect the network.
The USGS researchers analyzed the most common attacks on mobile phone networks from 2016 to 2021 and found that they had a variety of vulnerabilities.
Some of the attacks relied on an infected device being used to send a message, while others were used to spoof a nearby cellular tower, which allowed an attacker to spoof cell phone numbers to another phone.
Researchers say that some of the vulnerabilities are more prevalent now than they were a few years ago, and that they could still be exploited if more attacks are found.
The authors of the report also said that many of the problems are still present, with many of them being exploited by attackers today.
For example, the researchers found three attacks that relied on the same vulnerability to spoof phone numbers, and another attack that exploited the same flaw to trick users into installing a fake app that would send them to an untrusted server.
The security problems have made the cell phone industry vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks and can make it more difficult for carriers to deliver services like video calling and messaging to customers, as well as protect their networks from spoofing attacks.
In a statement, the Federal Communications Commission said that the agency is “reviewing” the report.
“The FCC has been working with industry stakeholders to identify and address any additional vulnerabilities and ensure that all of our cell phone systems are resilient to spoofing,” FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said in a statement.