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New Security Flaws In 4G, 5G Can Be Used To Track Cell Phone Locations, Intercept Calls

New Security Flaws In 4G, 5G Can Be Used To Track Cell Phone Locations, Intercept Calls

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This is not good news for cell phone users worldwide.

Security experts have just found flaws in the 5G models that can put you and your information at a security risk.

“They’ve discovered three flaws in 4G and 5G that could be used to intercept phone calls and track someone’s location. The first and most important, Torpedo, relies on a flaw in the paging protocol that notifies phones of incoming calls and texts. If you start and cancel several calls in a short period, you can send a paging message without alerting the device to a call. That not only lets you track the device’s location, but opens the door to two other attacks,” Engadget reported.

These researchers have found three new security flaws in 4G and 5G. And these flaws can be used to intercept phone calls and track the locations of cell phone users.

“The findings are said to be the first time vulnerabilities have affected both 4G and the incoming 5G standard, which promises faster speeds and better security, particularly against law enforcement use of cell site simulators, known as “stingrays.” But the researchers say that their new attacks can defeat newer protections that were believed to make it more difficult to snoop on phone users,” TechCrunch reported.


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“All four of the largest US carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Engadget parent Verizon) are susceptible to Torpedo,” Engadget reported.

“Any person with a little knowledge of cellular paging protocols can carry out this attack,” said Syed Rafiul Hussain, one of the researchers.

Hussain, along with Ninghui Li and Elisa Bertino at Purdue University, and Mitziu Echeverria and Omar Chowdhury at the University of Iowa just revealed their findings at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium.

Luckily these aren’t permanent flaws — there are fixes, but experts say they will take time.