Rogue Cell Towers Could Be Intercepting Your Call

photo by Boyd Loving hummmmm……….(Ridgewood Rogue Tower?

Rogue Cell Towers Could Be Intercepting Your Call
Dave Lewis Contributor

It seems rather far fetched at first glance. There is news that came out last week that rogue cell phone towers around the US are forcing mobile devices to disable their encryption making it possible that someone might be able to listen in to your call. “That could never happen to me,” you think out loud. But, apparently it could.

In 2010 at the DEF CON in Las Vegas, security researcher Chris Paget did the unthinkable. He built a cell tower of his own so that he could spoof legitimate towers and intercept calls.The device would mimic the type used by law enforcement agencies to intercept phone calls. In this case, he was able to build it for roughly $1500 US. Paget’s device would only capture 2G GSM phone calls. Carriers such as AT&T T +0.37% and T-Mobile would be vulnerable as they use GSM, unlike Verizon which relies on CDMA technology.

I was in attendance for this particular presentation and I had a disposable phone with me at the time. During the presentation when the device was switched on my phone was more than happy to oblige and seamlessly associated with the contraption that was across the room. Had I not been aware that this was going on, it was quite conceivable that I could have not noticed the change to the rogue tower. The point of this presentation was to raise awareness of the security flaws that affect GSM related phones.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davelewis/2014/09/03/rogue-cell-towers-could-be-intercepting-your-call/