Researchers Discover Phone Weakness that Allows Hackers to Track Location

University of Minnesota Computer Science researchers have found a weak link in virtually all cell phones that can allow hackers to physically track the location of the person using the phone to within a half mile or less, depending on location. The team, made up of students Denis Foo Kune and John Koelndorfer and associate professors Nick Hopper and Yongdae Kim, have published their findings on the University web site and are to give a presentation at this year’s Annual Network & Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego.

The problem they say, is in how cell phones (not just Smartphones with GPS) and cell towers communicate with one another, specifically when a call is made to a cell phone. When a call is made, the signal is eventually routed to a cell tower that is deemed by the phone network software to be physically closet to the phone that is being called. That tower than sends a signal to the phone, causing it to ring, which causes a signal to be sent back to the tower letting it know that the phone has been located and is ringing. Once the phone is answered, the conversation begins. The weakness in the system, the researchers found, comes in if a hacker is able to send the same sort of signal to the cell tower as the phone network, causing a message to be sent to the user’s phone to make it ring. When that phone sends back a signal indicating it’s ringing, it lets the tower, and the hacker know, that the phone, and it’s user potentially, has been found. If the hacker then hangs up before the phone actually performs its first ring, the user of that phone will never know that a call was placed to them, and that a hacker may be nearby looking for them.

In most respects, it’s the same sort of technique the phone company uses to track down the location of a cell phone user when requested to do so by the police. The difference here is that in one instance it’s all perfectly legal, and in the other it’s not. Also, clearly the reason for tracking down an individuals’ location would be different as the local Fox affiliate in Minneapolis notes in reporting on the research team’s findings. The ability of a hacker to track down someone to within a few blocks in the city, or perhaps worse, to within a half mile or so in rural areas, where houses may be just that same distance apart, puts people at great risk if the hacker is looking to harm someone.


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