iPhone’s Field Test program used to hack cell towers network
May 28, 2008 by James
Apparently the Field Test tool that comes with the iPhone (instructions on accessing it here) does much more than simple diagnostics.
This weekend at the Summercon security conference in Atlanta David Maynor, CTO for Errata Security, will present a tool made by his company that allows an iPhone user to collect advanced information about the cell towers network, including the frequency on which the iPhone operates. The hack has a funny name: “cellular spelunking”.
According to Mr Maynor, “Cell networks weren’t built with security in mind.” For example, after obtaining the frequency it is potentially possible to find cell towers’ control channels, many of which carry such information as SMS messages that are being sent to all mobiles in the area. “It would be the equivalent of turning on a sniffer on a computer for certain types of data,” he said.
Furthermore, if this new tool is used in conjunction with a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), it is even possible to hack the cellular network itself. Interestingly enough, Mr Maynor says that he did not have to hack anything in the iPhone to reverse engineer the Field Test program — everything was graciously provided.
The tool will be demonstrated this weekend, source code and white paper will be released, and Mr Maynor even plans to explain how he reverse engineered it. We’ll keep you posted.
Thanks: DarkReading
Tags: app, hack, iPhone, News, OS
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iPhone’s Field Test program used to hack cell towers network
Article by James
My name is James Farlow, I'm 23 years of age, attending university in computers engineering and apart of that I enjoy blogging here and now for a few sites. The phone that I currently use is a custom modded white iPhone 4 but am really looking forward to iPhone 5.
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