Canada’s privacy watchdog is sounding the alarm about the threat of hackers intercepting mobile phone communications from a single phone number.

In his annual report, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien responded to an investigative report by Radio-Canada-CBC.

“Thanks to a report broadcast last November by the CBC and the Radio Canada, we became aware of a security vulnerability related to the SS7”, the commissioner wrote in his report tabled Thursday.

SS7 — Signaling System # 7 — is the global system for mobile telephone traffic. Any network that does not adopt adequate security measures is vulnerable to hacking through SS7.

Source: CBC News

Date: September 28th, 2018

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/therrien-cellphone-hacking-ss7-1.4843097

Discussion

1) “With the help of a hacker in Germany, Radio-Canada-CBC was able to intercept calls from a federal MP and geotag his every move”.  Well this seems like it is a real problem.  How might you make a company around this sort of “service”.

2) Imagine you are the CIO (Chief Information Officer) of a large 1,000 person company.  How do you get everyone to know about this issue and make changes to their services or phones?