Researchers: ‘Simjacker’ Attack Silently Tracks Your Phone

Both Apple and Google spend a great deal of time and energy strengthening the security of their mobile platforms. No piece of software is perfect, but Android and iOS are overall very secure these days. That doesn’t matter when an attack can completely bypass your operating system. Researchers from AdaptiveMobile Security say they’ve uncovered an attack method dubbed Simjacker that can track users by sending a text message.

AdaptiveMobile says the attack works on devices from Motorola, Apple, Google, Huawei, and more. It’s all about the technology inside the SIM card, and this isn’t an attack that just popped up. AdaptiveMobile says it has found evidence that Simjacker has been active in highly targeted attacks for up to two years.

AdaptiveMobile has not revealed the company or government that is using Simjacker, but says it’s not a mass surveillance operation. Instead, the perpetrator is tracking a small number of targets multiple times per day. Some numbers investigated by the researchers were pinged for location hundreds of times per week.

The good news is that mobile operators should be able to quickly put a stop to Simjacker. It relies on sending binary code to devices in the form of an SMS rather than a normally formatted SMS message. That should make it easy to filter at the network level.

Continue reading

Google CEO Promises to Investigate Exit of Top AI Researcher

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has waded into the furor surrounding the termination of AI ethicist Dr. Timnit Gebru, but his memo may not help the situation much.

Security Researcher: ‘solarwinds123’ Password Left Firm Vulnerable in 2019

SolarWinds, the company at the center of the massive hack that hit US government agencies and corporations, doesn't exactly use cutting-edge password techniques.

Researchers Develop Whitest Paint Ever to Combat Climate Change

Aside from being a neat technical feat, the team believes the new white paint could help address climate change by saving loads of power.

Researchers: 2.5 Billion Tyrannosaurus Rexes Walked the Earth

A new analysis from the University of California Berkeley estimates that there were about 20,000 adult Tyrannosaurs at any given time during the Cretaceous period. Add that up over millions of years, and there could easily have been 2.5 billion of these dinosaurs in total.