The NSA could be able to listen in on your lols.  
    Christian Rivera  
    In a new report on some of the confidential documents leaked by    former NSA contractor Edward Snowden,     The Intercept wrote that operatives from both the National    Security Administration (NSA) and the British Government    Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) joined forces in April 2010    to crack mobile phone encryption. The Mobile Handset    Exploitation Team (MHET) succeeded in stealing untold numbers    of encryption keys from SIM card makers and mobile networks,    specifically Dutch SIM card maker Gemalto, one ofthe    largest SIM manufacturers in the world. Gemalto produces 2    billion SIM cards a year, which are used all over the world.  
    Although the SIM card in a cell phone was originally    usedto verify billing to mobile phone users, today a SIM    also stores the encryption keys that protect a user's voice,    text, and data-based communications and make them difficult for    spies to listen in on. The mobile carrier holds the    corresponding key that allows the phone to connect to the    mobile carrier's network. Each SIM card is manufactured with an    encryption key (called a Ki) that is physically burned into    the chip. When you go to use the phone, it conducts a secret    'handshake' that validates that the Ki on the SIM matches the    Ki held by the mobile company, The Intercept explains. Once    that happens, the communications between the phone and the    network are encrypted.  
    To steal the SIM encryption keys, MHET exploited a weakness in    SIM manufacturers' business routinethat SIM card manufacturers    tend to deliver the corresponding Kis to mobile carriers via    e-mail or File Transfer Protocol. By doing basic cyberstalking    of Gemalto employees, the NSA and GCHQ were able to pilfer    millions of SIM Kis, which have a slow turnover rate (your    phone's Ki will likely remain the same as long as you keep the    SIM in the phone) and can be used to decrypt data that has been    stored for months or even years.  
    Gemalto not only makes SIM cards, but it also makes chips that    are placed into EMV credit cards as well as the chips built    into next-generation United States passports. Paul Beverly, a    Gemalto executive vice president, told The Intercept that the    company's security team began an audit on Wednesday and could    find no evidence of the hacks. The most important thing for me    is to understand exactly how this was done, so we can take    every measure to ensure that it doesnt happen again, and also    to make sure that theres no impact on the telecom operators    that we have served in a very trusted manner for many years,    Beverly said. Gemalto's clients include hundreds of wireless    networks around the world, including all four major carriers in    the US.  
    According to the documents procured by The Intercept, MHET was    able to use the     NSA's XKeyscore to mine the e-mail accounts and Facebook    profiles of engineers at major telecom companies and SIM    card manufacturing companies, looking for clues that would get    them into the SIM Ki trove. (XKeyscore is a program designed by    the NSA to reassemble and analyse the data packets it finds    traveling over a network. XKeyscore is powerful enough to be    able to pull up the full content of users' Web browser    sessions, and it can even generate a full replay of a network    session between two Internet addresses, as     Ars reported in 2013.) Eventually, MHET learned enough to    be able to plant malware on several of Gemalto's internal    servers.  
    In the course of trying to break into Gemalto's internal    network, the NSA and GCHQ looked for employees using encryption    as preferred targets. The spy agencies also expanded their    surveillance to include mobile phone companies and networks, as    well as other SIM manufacturers. The Intercept explained:  
      In one instance, GCHQ zeroed in on a Gemalto employee in      Thailand who they observed sending PGP-encrypted files,      noting that if GCHQ wanted to expand its Gemalto operations,      he would certainly be a good place to start. They did not      claim to have decrypted the employees communications, but      noted that the use of PGP could mean the contents were      potentially valuable.    
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SIM card makers hacked by NSA and GCHQ leaving cell networks wide open