[VoiceOps] SMS receive security

[Carlos Alvarez]

On 12/10/09 9:53 AM, Peter Beckman wrote:
>
> The SMS is also delivered over the air, which means it can be intercepted.
> I know that there is some sort of authentication between the phone and the
> tower, but since SMS is part of informational messages sent between the
> tower and the phone, it may not be encrypted, and may be easily sniffed.

On GSM networks, the SMS is not encrypted.  I don't know about CDMA 
networks.  While intercepting GSM messages is non-trivial, it's not 
hugely difficult either if you're ready to spend some cash and time to 
do it.  Still, this would have to be a very targeted attack in the 
context of one-time tertiary authentication data, and not useful in general.


-- 
Carlos Alvarez
TelEvolve
602-889-3003

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