Hackers are Stealing Years of Call Records from Hacked Cell Networks

Boston-based company Cybereason discovered a breach in multiple phone provider networks, which was carried out by an unknown group of hackers who have been conducting targeted surveillance on individuals on interest for seven years, having hacked ten call networks globally in order to obtain massive amounts of call records – time, date, and location – on 20 individuals. They are able to track the immediate location of victims, which include spies and politicians, and are able to obtain detailed insight on personal life through call detail records (CDR) which are highly detailed metadata logs generated by all phone providers; they have also been used by the National Security Agency, which has caused quite a stir regarding the legality of this action. It is thought that the hackers are latching onto vulnerabilities such as finding a weak spot on an internet-connected web server and then further stealing credentials from machinery to get deeper access, until eventually they gained access to the domain controller, making it unnecessary to deploy malware on each device. Later on, the target’s data is compressed and a virtual private network connection is created in one of the cell provider’s compromised servers – similar to leaving a bookmark in an unfinished book – so that the hackers can pick up where they left off without having to constantly find their way back. The hackers’ knowledge of similar providers’ networks allow for quicker, more efficient attacks on large and small companies alike. There are no detected cases in North America currently, but Cybereason sounded the alarm to alert other telecom companies. There is a strong belief that the culprit may be a hacker group backed by China, but it is a delicate topic amongst speculations regarding Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant accused by U.S. authorities of being a proxy for China’s cyberspies, and U.S. accusations of China breaking an anti-hacking deal with the U.S.

Reference:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/24/hackers-cell-networks-call-records-theft/