GSM

The GSM mobile standard is wide open for attack, experts have warned, thanks in part to the increasing amount of computing power available to hackers.

"Voice interception capability really depends on how much processing power you have," said Aaron Turner, cofounder of security specialists N4struct, speaking at the RSA 2012 conference in San Francisco. "But that's just a function of Moore's Law – the faster computers get, the more data they can handle."

Using inexpensive cell phones along with open source software computer science Ph.D. student Denis Foo Kune at the University of Minnesota, along associate professors Nick Hopper and Yongdae Kim as well as undergraduate student John Koelndorfer, has shown that any third party can track the location of your cell phone without your knowledge.

Researcher Karsten Nohl is continuing his crusade to get mobile operators to improve the security of their networks by releasing software that can turn phones into mobile data snoops of GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) traffic.

Using a GPRS interceptor, someone could "read their neighbor's Facebook updates," he told CNET in a brief interview last week. He planned to release the software during a presentation today at the Chaos Communication Camp 2011 in Finowfurt, Germany, near Berlin.

The Hacker's Choice (http://www.thc.org) announced a security problem with Vodafone's Mobile Phone Network today allowing an attacker to eavesdrop on ANY UK Vodafone customer's phone call.