HOW SPY AGENCIES MONITOR YOU MOBILE COMMUNICATION ?
All mobile communications are private because of the encrypted connection between an individual's mobile and the wireless carrier's network. The encryption keys to decrypt that communication is in every phone's SIM card.
These keys basically allow mobile communications – both voice and data – to be decrypted without alerting the users, networks or governments of any activity.
Once stolen, the SIM Card Encryption Keys grants the US and British agents the ability to secretly monitor "a large portion of the world’s cellular communications," both voice calls and data, from 450 wireless network providers without the approval of telecom companies or foreign governments.
HOLY SHIT! MY VOICE AND DATA ARE MONITORED ?
This may have given the spying agencies power to silently and effortlessly eavesdrop on anyone’s communications done over a cellphone without leaving any tell-tale trace.
NSA and its counterpart GCHQ could intercept and decrypt any communications, anytime and anywhere they want. This could make it a lot easier for the agencies to conduct widespread surveillance of wireless communications without getting warrants or asking permission from telecom companies or foreign governments.
HELL OF A HEIST
The breach is devastating for mobile security, which has been targeted a numerous of times. According to the Intercept, it’s hell of a heist. "Gaining access to a database of keys is pretty much game over for cellular encryption," said cryptography specialist Matthew Green.
NSA’s attempt to break into a major corporation and steal private encryption keys that protect hundreds of millions of users worldwide isn't surprising behavior. Because, past two years revelations about the NSA and its allies taught us that they can go to any extent in order to collect data and break or interfere with security on the Internet.
At the beginning of the month, Snowden revealed about the NSA and GCHQ efforts to track and monitor the activities of independent and state-sponsored hackers, some security researchers and news agencies, including The Hacker News, in order to pilfer the stolen data from hackers' archives and to gather information on their targets respectively.
Apart of this, the latest revelation is really a bad news for pretty much everyone around the world having cellphones in their pockets, since it's highly likely that your mobile phone contains a Gemalto-manufactured SIM card, and which means your conversations can be easily monitored.
The revelation is also a bad news for countries, except the U.S. and U.K., since these SIM Card Encryption Keys give them an easy way to spy on foreign countries without asking permission. And last but not the least, it’s really bad news for the biggest SIM card manufacturer Gemalto, as the agencies cyber stalked and hacked its employees to obtain the private encryption keys.