Slashdot Mirror
Crashing A Nokia Phone Via SMS
Atryn writes "An article at the Register reports that a recent Black Hat conference presenter demonstrated how to crash Nokia cell phones using malformed headers in SMS messaging protocols. Though the SIM card can be recovered by moving to a new phone, this is perhaps an interesting preview of security issues as data goes wireless." Of course, when you live in the US, where your wireless services are about eight years behind the curve, this is less of an issue. *grin*
It's time to code firewalls and applicative filtering proxies for mobile phones...
{{.sig}}
Not sure? According to the CNN article its a temporary thing. The Reg says its a lot nastier.
Plus, I think the Reg's angle was that there's now a Script Kiddie tool to do the job.
Europe is ahead of the Us because they have a standard system. However the US has several systems which have features that are better than what Europe has. CDMA is a better standard than GMS overall, and there are others, which gives each a trial by fire. The best can then be combined into something that works. Generation 3 cell phones (if they ever make it) have been heavially influenced by what worked and didn't work in the US. If everyone was GSM like Europe is, then generation 3 would not be as good as it is.
Remember standardise early, but not too early.
I won't argue when you say it is convient to have one standard, but in real life most of the US has just as good of coverage as Europe. Sure there is only one provider, but who cares if the phone works? Get out from the major cities and there is no service, but a single GSM standard would't help much. Population densities are very low in the US, to there day there are many miles where there is no coverage on any system. (Unless there is a satalite system now)
For the first time, hackers can kill. Considering the number of people who use their cell phones while driving, a random "crash" (what a terrible pun) while trying to send email or view stock quotes while driving should be enough to push a few drivers "over the edge".
The good news is that if terrorists intend to use such "crash" attempts to crash cars or other vehicles, we at least have new legislation to stop them.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
Just like any technology, it can be used and abused. If I were the type who didn't like the word asshole, I might be justified in lamenting:
.. would you prefer to crack down on these people, and drive their activities into the underground where you are upable to keep an eye on them?
Is it at all possible to have any sort of message board without people coming along and using the word asshole?
Any other way, and you wouldn't be on planet earth, bub. Stop whining about it, and start questionting which you value more: crashable cell phones, or no cell phones?
Society must accept the inevitability of technology as an unbiased tool. Technology CANNOT be created for good. Like it or not, as a society, we must accept that when we adopted cell phones, we accepted the possibility that they may not always work, in the same way that as a society we value the use of cars more so than the lives of the thousands upon thousands of people who die as a result of them every year.
Anyone who thinks technology puts powers only in the hands of the righteous (whatever the hell that is) is a fool. In the case of Black Hats, I'd rather the concaine junkies in my neighbourhood congregate and do their thing in the middle of daylight in the park rather than at night, in allys, if you catch my drift. The fact that this was demonstrated at a conference is a good thing
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yes, it does exist today, but how long have GSM networks been in the US? Maybe a few years at best. How about widespread deployment?
Seriously. I have Voicestream GSM service & a tri-band phone, and have mediocre coverage in Washington, D.C., but last week had awesome coverage throughout Scotland and northern England (I'm talking small towns, not just cities like Edinburgh, etc.). Even got encrypted transmission service in Iceland. But in the U.S.? Nuthin' but crap.
Maybe cell phones are more like fashion than technology: we American's like it 2 years after it's popular in London.
Of course, when you live in the US, where your wireless services are about eight years behind the curve, this is less of an issue.
Security through Inertia. Hmm...
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
You do not seem to realize the success that sms has in Europe. If we follow you, why send an email when you can call the person on a phone ? Ridiculous. I am not an avid sms user but I see it can be useful in many situations :
- If you cannot talk or do not want to talk, in a lecture for example, you can still type.
- If you want to send a phone number or a complex address, it is easier for the receiver to read it than to have to write it when you talk.
- You can reuse the same message as many times as you want.
- You can type a message and send it later.
- If the network is poor and audio not working, sms still works. (I only use sms with why brother, the antenna of his phone is broken). It even saved a man's life in England.
- With sms, you can see the number of the sender and ignore it.
- you can receive personal news and services that way.
- you can have your email forwarded etc.
- etc.
Finally if you find a place where 802.11b works everywhere with phones as cheap as current ones, I will go live there !
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Is this new? I have seen this happen a lot, and not just with nokia. The special characters from phillip's phones can crash quite a few phones. Alcatel seem to be one of the worst for crashing. Some phones seem to be fine, but an't delete the message from the sms through to the phone not working till the message is deleted from the sms on another phone.
The GSM system in Iceland is one of the most advanced networks in the world. Everybody has a mobile. 9 year olds and up! :) Interesting fact! :)
Interestingly, I was just in Iceland last week, and my GSM phone had 1) the best reception I'd had anywhere (I'm from the States), 2) faster signal location than anywhere else (here in D.C. it takes a minute or so to find the nearest Voicestream tower), and 3) encrypted transmission between my phone and the tower (which I've never seen work anywhere else I've been).
My Nokia 5165 (like many other cell phones) has the ability for you to upload new ring tones and other delightful things to it. First, I was playing around with a few web sites that existed. Then I got ahold of the logic and created my own.
In my case, all I had to do was to send an email to mytelephonenumber@mobile.att.net, and it would be processed by the phone. (Great way to act as a pager, too.)
In my experiment with music ring tones, I found that it was quite easy to accidently craft a message (in my case, a new ring tone) that is malformed. And it actually hung my cell phone up.
I probably should have published this as a cool DOS attack, but then again, I really didn't know WHERE to public cell phone DOS attacks, much less what could be done to counter it, so I kept it to myself.
Play around enough, though, and you'll find your own special email you can send to a cell phone that'll lock it tight.