German hacker cleaves clean-through GSM security encryption

by Stevie Smith - Dec 29 2009, 07:36

Beyond the unsettling paranoia associated with shadowy government agencies listening in on our phone calls, it would now appear everyone and their eavesdropping monkey will soon be able to covertly access and monitor our telecommunication habits. 

Moreover, a German hacker is claiming to have broken through the 64-bit A5/1 security encryption algorithm designed to protect GSM mobile calls all around the world.

According to The New York Times, 28-year-old Karsten Nohl, a computer engineer and encryption specialist, revealed the publication of his break-in code during the recent Chaos Communication Congress convention in Berlin.

Maintaining that his work is strictly academic, Nohl warned that current algorithm protection systems used to encrypt GSM calls are not suitably robust to effectively repel security threats and prevent unwanted intrusion.  

Responding to Nohl’s claim and his subsequent cautionary opinion, the GSM Association insisted that GSM security is not nearly as vulnerable as the hacker suggests. The London-based association also labelled his actions as illegal under both U.S. and British law.

“[The hack] is theoretically possible but practically unlikely,” commented GSM spokeswoman Claire Cranton, before adding that Nohl’s attempts “to do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me.”

GSM is an integral facet of mobile phone communication across the globe, responsible for some 3.5 billion of the 4.3 billion wireless connections. GSM’s two biggest carriers in the United States are AT&T and T-Mobile USA.

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