![]() He points out that it's not only intelligence agencies or military operatives who use stingrays, but also local police departments, who may not have the most up-to-date gear. That premise may overestimate the resources of some stingray users, argues Matt Green, a professor focused on computer security at Johns Hopkin University. But for two of the most popular detector apps, someone could just as easily use a stingray to steal that IMSI identifier and start tracking and wiretapping them from the first time they targeted them, without raising any warning from the person's stingray-monitoring app. To skirt some of the detection apps, the spy would need to know the unique IMSI identifier of the target's phone ahead of time, perhaps by using an IMSI catcher on the victim earlier or obtaining it from their carrier via a legal order. In fact, they found they could fully circumvent each one, allowing the researchers to trick the phones into handing over their sensitive data. Researchers from Oxford University and the Technical University of Berlin today plan to present the results of a study of five stingray-detection apps. Watching the watchers turns out to be a complicated business. Unfortunately, it seems, those tools aren't as effective as they claim. As smartphone users have become more aware that fake cell phone towers, known as IMSI catchers or stingrays, can spy on them, developers have rushed to offer apps that detect when your phone connects to one. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |