US and UK Intelligence Agencies Hacked and Stole Cell Phone Manufacturer Encryption Keys

Beginning in 2010, a previously undisclosed unit of the British GCHQ acting with support from the NSA, the Mobile Handset Exploitation Team (MHET), penetrated the internal networks of cell phone SIM card manufacturing companies in order to steal encryption keys before the phones came to market, according to documents revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and published this week on the Intercept .
The latest revelations of hacking to spy on cell phone communications underscore the criminality of the operations undertaken by the NSA and GCHQ and their companion agencies in imperialist countries around the world.
The documents show that MHET agents ‘cyberstalked’ employers at SIM card manufacturers, monitoring their social media accounts, emails and other personal information with technology provided by the NSA in order to gain means to infiltrate their employers’ networks. ‘These people were specifically hunted and targeted by intelligence agencies, not because they did anything wrong, but because they could be used as a means to an end,’ said the ACLU’s Christopher Soghoian to theIntercept .
Subscriber identity modules, or SIM cards, store identification information for cell phone users, including encryption keys that protect vital personal information that is transferred from a phone to a wireless carrier. By obtaining the encryption keys of mobile devices, intelligence agencies are able to bypass a phone’s security to monitor all communication on a given device, including voice communication, text messages and emails.

This post was published at 21st Century Wire on FEBRUARY 23, 2015.

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