Your phone number is said to among the ten most personal digits that everyone has today. As much as smartphones have helped to make the phone industry better, there is a problem today with the system that hackers are utilizing. It is reported that only with a cell number, a hacker can easily eavesdrop on your communications and track your location.
The Signaling System No.7 popularly known as SS7 is an important system for communication, but it has a flaw. All your communications have to be passed through this system before ending up to the other end. Hackers are now attacking this system and gaining all the knowledge about the users. SS7 handles the translation whenever sending a message or making a call, this is why hackers will have an easy time tracking what you say and send as text.
This security flaw was discovered two years ago by a top German security researcher, Karsten Nohl. Since them, it seems like the relevant authorities have done less to handle such data breach. Most smartphone users would not know about the SS7, so the government has to step in and help protect the privacy of its citizens.
To help show how it was serious when it comes to this flaw, experts hacked a congressman’s phone with his permission. They could hear every call he made and showed him the recordings. This was in an aim to show the top government officials that they too could be hacked.
It is possible that the government is reluctant to implement security measures as it uses the SS7 flaw to monitor the communications of their citizens. Many people now can would want to have their communications without being monitored, but it is too late for that. The governments have been doing so for a long time.
The only way to beat the flaw in the system is by encrypting the message before sending out to the other user. You will need apps that can do this installed on your phone. Apps such as Whatsapp, Signal and iMessage are known to encrypt the messages before sending them. We would also want to have the same for calls.
In an aim to spy on their citizens, the governments have made the phone conversations easily available to the hackers. Starting today, ensure that you install the recommended encryption apps that help with more phone conversations protection.
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