Security Experts: 80% of All Smartphones Vulnerable to Hijack Scams

Mobile experts from Security Research Labs warned on Sunday that a vulnerability in a widely used wireless technology can be exploited by hackers to take control of your smartphone and use it to send text messages and make calls without your knowledge, Fox News is reporting.

The vulnerability exists in GSM networks, the type that run about 80% of the world’s phones. If hackers exploit this loophole, they could use your phone to call premium service text and pay lines to charge huge bills to victims.

The Security service told the conference that while hackers had been able to hack individual phones in the past, this type of attack could commandeer hundreds of thousands of cellphones in seconds.

Even though the security firm says they will not reveal the code at the conference, it is usually within weeks of these kinds of announcements that hacking networks figure out how to do it on their own.

This type of vulnerability has already been done and in fact is fairly common in business based landlines. Hackers set up huge networks of bogus pay per service lines and have thousands of landlines call them at once charging huge bills to the business. The telephone company who provides the lines usually winds up taking a large hit for the problem.

The security company said that most GSM providers have been lacking when it comes to network security. A lot of times they are able to provide higher levels of security just by constantly updating their internal software.

Researchers reviewed operators in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Slovakia, Switzerland and Thailand.