Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter to President Biden and the Cabinet calling on them to regulate cybersecurity standards for wireless carriers to prevent further exploitation of the “lax security” of the U.S. telephone network. .
“I write to ask you to address the serious threat posed by the lax cybersecurity practices of wireless carriers, which are unregulated and should be.” Wyden’s letter said: “Surveillance companies and their authoritarian foreign government customers have been exploiting the lax security of U.S. and foreign phone networks to track phones anywhere in the world for at least a decade.”
Wyden said authoritarian governments are abusing tools to track Americans in the United States and reporters and dissidents abroad, threatening national security, press freedom, and international human rights. insisted.
The senator said in the letter that the surveillance technology company sells access to phone hacking services that allow foreign government customers to enter any phone number and track them anywhere in the world.
“In contrast to spyware-based surveillance, these services do not interact with the target phone; instead, they trick the wireless carrier’s servers into leaking information,” he wrote.
He said the most popular operating systems, Google and Apple, cannot track the service, and tracking depends entirely on the security of private wireless carriers.
He said phone hacking companies are exploiting flaws in two unknown technologies known as Diameter and Signaling System 7 (SS7). Both of his technologies are used for text messaging by wireless carriers around the world.
Wyden highlighted that several federal agencies have noted the serious threat posed by SS7 surveillance and the “importance of ensuring the safety of users of America’s communications networks.” He claimed that no authority or government agency is taking responsibility for the problem and that little is being done to address the problem.
Wyden accused the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of “actively hiding information from the American people” about the threat.
The senator said his staffers were allowed to read a report they independently conducted for government agencies last fall, but that the agency “has not been able to reach policymakers and Americans concerned about cell phone security. It said it has refused to release non-classified information, including “relevant details.”
Among several other demands on the Biden administration, Wyden called on the government to ensure the safety of Americans’ wireless communications by addressing this threat twice a year until it is meaningfully addressed. He asked Congress to provide updated information.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
