Loose Lips: Do you know what your employees are talking about?
Phone tapping is a staple of film and TV thrillers. Covert arms of government and the police often resort to wire taps to uncover criminal activity or worse. Corporate espionage also has depended on the technique
Surely as more of us use mobile phones for work and personal communications, traditional phone tapping seems quaint. The rise in mobile telephony hasn't prevented wire tapping but it has made the technique more expensive and difficult to achieve. That is, until now, when l recent breakthroughs mean businesses need to take the risk of mobile phone interception seriously.
But how long before mobile wire tapping technology gets into the hands of criminals themselves? The fact is the cost of mobile phone interception is falling and becoming more accessible. Over the past four months leading ethical hackers have demonstrated how mobile voice interception is possible and within the reach of anyone with minimal technical knowledge, a standard laptop and radio cards costing less than $1500.
The threat to mobile phone voice security is on the rise. An FT report revealed that hackers had published a free codebook for unscrambling GSM calls used by 3 billion mobile phone users globally. In the hacker's words 'this security threat affects more people than any other in history".
The motivation for mobile phone interception is clear especially when the targets are major businesses. In a recent study by the highly respected Ponemon Institute on behalf of Cellcrypt, 80% of senior security professionals in some of the largest businesses admitted they would never discover an interception. In the same report, the average cost of data loss was $1.3m and this occurred at least monthly for 61% of companies, making it a multi-million dollar problem.
The greatest risk is when either you or your workforce is operating overseas. Mobile phone calls made by business executives could be targeted by competitors, nation states and even state-sponsored local business partners to collect highly sensitive data. Executives also have real concern for personal safety in some regions such as Latin America where kidnapping and 'express kidnapping' is routine.
Most governments and many corporate enterprises have been planning for exactly this kind of threat for a while. However, now that the threat is demonstrably closer, anyone that discusses valuable or confidential information on their mobile phone is now at increased risk and should seriously be considering how to make those calls more secure.
So what are some of the top tips for keeping your mobile communications confidential?
• Never assume that voice calls are confidential
• Keep your phone safe and do not leave it vulnerable to methods of physical interception
• Use and protect your phone and voicemail PINs in the same way as your bankcard PIN
• Be vigilant to prevent malicious software on your phone
• Use voice call encryption software on your phone
• If you have no alternative (such as using encryption software) and urgently need to discuss confidential matters over a mobile phone:
• Split information across different channels (e.g. refer to emails or send texts etc. so information is incomplete and meaningless on its own)
• Do the obvious e.g. cover your mouth so you can't be lip-read, choose a location where you can't be overheard, talk quietly and be brief
Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO of Cellcrypt
