GSM Phone Flaw Leaves Hundreds of Thousands of Phone Vulnerable

A security researcher talking at a conference in Berlin has stated that the GSM protocol that is used on mobile phones all around the world on a number of networks has a major security vulnerability. The protocol leaves the phones susceptible to hacking by nefarious sorts and that hacking can leave the phones open for full take over.

The vulnerability allows the smartphones to be taken over and the hacker can initiate calls and text messages. I can see this being used to force phones into calling premium phone or text numbers. The researcher says that phones susceptible to the hack are so prevalent that it can let the hackers take over hundreds of thousands of phones in a short time.

Hacks on individual types of phones like this aren't uncommon. This is the first time a flaw has left so many devices open to attack though. The researcher didn’t offer details on how to exploit the flaw. He did state that it often takes only weeks for nefarious programmers to exploit a flaw like that.