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'SMS of Death' Could Crash Many Mobile Phones

Posted by Soulskill on from the can-we-find-better-names-for-these-things dept.

space_in_your_face writes "Research presented at a conference in Germany last week shows that phones don't even have to be smart to be vulnerable to hackers. Using only Short Message Service (SMS) communications, a pair of security researchers were able to force low-end phones to shut down abruptly and knock them off a cellular network. The trick works for handsets made by Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Micromax, a popular Indian cell-phone manufacturer."

8 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Desired future news: by Even+on+Slashdot+FOE · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sending the "SMS of Death" has become common practice at theaters in order to finally force people's cell phones to stop ringing.

    1. Re:Desired future news: by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah, the good old "put half of my post in the title, even though a lot of people skim past the titles since they're usually full of Re:re:re:re:re:". Oops.

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      which is totally what she said
  2. Re:So ... by kenrblan · · Score: 3, Funny

    You might need to define vicinity. One option is to send the programmatically SMS of death to every possible combination of mobile phone numbers within you area code. That might hit a few that have roamed outside your area, but would largely accomplish your task.

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    Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
  3. VoD of the Talk by radl · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can watch the talk over here: http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/27C3/mp4-h264-HQ/27c3-4060-en-attacking_mobile_phones.mp4 or download it via torrent: http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/27C3/mp4-h264-HQ/27c3-4060-en-attacking_mobile_phones.mp4.torrent

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    1266953+17
  4. No surprises by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Funny

    I had a cheap Virgin Mobile, and if you looked at it funny it would crash.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  5. Re:Ahhhhhhhhh by Jimpqfly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You have the button, but this is better : you have the EXCUSE

  6. twice ridiculous by toolz · · Score: 4, Informative

    1.This post (and the linked-to article) make a great effort to hide the name of the "conference in Germany". $deity knows why, but the conference was the 27th Chaos Communication Congress (27C3), organised by the Chaos Computer Club.

    2.The "SMS of death" was not new in any way - it was well known and discussed back in 2008 at the 25C3. What the researchers effectively showed was that the manufacturers and the GSM networks had *still* not fixed the problem, even years later!

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    You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
  7. SMS Content? by salmosri · · Score: 3, Funny

    Anyone know what to put in the message? Just for research purposes....