Establishing covert communication channels by abusing GSM AT commands
Security research often starts as a hobby project, and Alfonso Muñoz’s and Jorge Cuadrado’s probe into mobile privacy is no exception.
The duo, who’s scheduled to reveal the results of their research at the Hack in the Box Conference in Amsterdam next week, ended up finding a way to establishing covert communication channels over GSM by abusing GSM AT commands.
The first step of their investigation was to build a DIY mobile phone, and they plan to explain how they did it and share they lessons they learned from the experience. The possibility of establishing a covert communication channel through the GSM network by modifying exclusively AT commands in the client antenna came as a surprise, Muñoz told Help Net Security.
