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Hackers armed with a moderately sized network of zombie computers theoretically could knock out cellular service throughout the U.S., according to security researchers at Pennsylvania State University. In a report published Wednesday, the researchers explained how such an attack could exploit weaknesses in Short Message Service (SMS), which is used to send and receive text messages between mobile phones.

By engaging in a little creative hacking, attackers could build up databases of mobile numbers from specific regions and then flood those numbers with unwanted text messages. Attackers could use publicly available Web sites or messaging clients on zombie computers to send the text messages, which could eventually jam up the cellular towers that carriers use to send and receive SMS messages from mobile phones.

DoS by SMS

Because mobile phones use the same small portion of radio frequency, called the "control channel," to both set up calls and send SMS messages, a flood of SMS messages could so overwhelm a cellular tower that it would effectively prevent any new telephone calls from going through.


This technique, called a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, has been used successfully to take down Web sites, but to date, it has not been used on cellular networks, the researchers say.


To be most successful, the attack would need to target telephones within a certain geographic region, but the Penn State researchers said that this can be done by using public databases and creative Google searches.


In fact, it would take little more than a cable modem to deny service to large metropolitan areas in the U.S. For example, a city the size of Washington, D.C., could be taken out by a DoS attack with a bandwidth of about 2.8 megabits per second, they said.


"The amount of bandwidth that's allocated to the control channel is exceedingly small," said Patrick McDaniel, a professor of computer science and engineering at the university and one of the authors of the report. "The reason why we can mount this attack with so few messages is the fact that there's so little control channel bandwidth to be congested."


In fact, some European networks have already been overwhelmed when legitimate SMS messaging has hit unexpectedly high levels, McDaniel said. "It's happened by accident," he said.


Also, last year, a PC-based Trojan Horse program sent SMS spam to cell phones.

Carriers Aware

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Posted: 2005-10-07 02:36:27
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scary!!
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Posted: 2005-10-07 09:30:00
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Thank god its not in india ! This message was posted from a Nokia
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Posted: 2005-10-07 09:39:29
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networks must take it seriously. and must do something to prevent this from happening. This message was posted from a P910
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Posted: 2005-10-07 09:46:40
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theoretically possible, but why would anyone do that? i can see the benefit from hacking others computers, but jamming a station? to me it looks like one of those stories, you know- '23 ways nice little rabbit can begin nuclear war' This message was posted from a T610
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Posted: 2005-10-07 10:34:57
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@blayv, i do think there are some people out there who would want to do this just to show that "they can do it" !!
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Posted: 2005-10-07 11:24:00
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@ Whiz, Blue, Blavy: What the heck ! Ok Blavy isn't from India, but how can the two of you. Ok Blue is from a low tele density area. But Whiz, we are in Bombay. Have you forgotten Eid, Diwali, Christmas, New Years' .. When 2 million plus texts are generated in a couple of minutes ? Man we dont need hackers.. a dimwit friend of mine sent me a text last Diwali hot in the peak hours AND IT WAS DELIVERED TO ME AFTER 19 HOURS. These Americans.. no offense.. have amply resources (like time, money) to do s*it ! ! This message was posted from a S700
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Posted: 2005-10-07 13:47:54
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Hmm
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Posted: 2005-10-07 13:57:00
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@sail!! You forget! I'm not in bombay!! Yeah bombay is nearby, but i happen to be in the maharashtra circle...and till now, no instance of network jamming has been reported at my place...the only time the network crashed was on the rain day on july 26th, but not due to jamming, but a faulty tower..
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Posted: 2005-10-07 14:14:00
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Now that is a scary thought. Why worry about Symbian viruses when it's so easy to take down the entire underpinnings of the mobile telecommunications industry?
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Posted: 2005-10-07 22:25:52
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