NSA, GCHQ-ransacked' SIM maker Gemalto takes a $500m stock hit

[Ichingcarpenter]

The world's biggest SIM card manufacturer, Gemalto, revealed yesterday to have been hacked by the NSA and GCHQ, has taken a $470m hit in its stock price.

Gemalto was caught unawares by the revelation that the US and UK intelligence agencies had compromised its systems, and stole potentially millions of SIM card keys used to encrypt phone calls around the world. Gemalto supplies SIMs to 450 networks on Earth, from AT&T to T-Mobile, and launched an investigation.

Speculation that the Dutch manufacturer may be forced to recall chips, incurring huge costs, caused its share price to fall eight per cent in early trading before recovering a little to four per cent down on closing.

Obtaining SIM card private keys allows intelligence agencies to decrypt intercepted calls without anyone knowing – not the users, the network operators nor the handset manufactures. Communications eavesdropped today, yesterday or five years ago can be decoded once a SIM's Ki key is obtained.

The company issued a statement today in which it promised to get to the bottom of the hack:

"Gemalto is especially vigilant against malicious hackers, and has detected, logged and mitigated many types of attempts over the years. At present we cannot prove a link between those past attempts and what was reported yesterday.

“We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques.”

Incensed
Security watchers praised the company for its prompt and forthright response. But privacy and communications experts are incensed by the latest revelations about GCHQ/NSA warrantless mass surveillance.

The World Wide Web Foundation has called for urgent steps to be taken to secure private calls and online communications.

Its chief exec Anne Jellema commented: "The news that US and UK spy agencies hacked the network of a Dutch company to steal encryption keys for billions of SIM cards is truly shocking.

"Possession of these keys would allow these agencies to access private calls, web browsing records and other online communications without any of the legal safeguards and processes in place to prevent abuses of power.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/20/gemalto_sim_surveillance_fallout/

The NSA will now be sued for billions at the cost to the taxpayer
thanks NSA for fucking up and illegally breaking the law.



European Lawmakers Demand Answers on Phone Key Theft

Source: The Intercept

European officials are demanding answers and investigations into a joint U.S. and U.K. hack of the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile SIM cards, following a report published by The Intercept Thursday.

The report, based on leaked documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealed the U.S. spy agency and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, hacked the Franco-Dutch digital security giant Gemalto in a sophisticated heist of encrypted cell-phone keys.

The European Parliament’s chief negotiator on the European Union’s data protection law, Jan Philipp Albrecht, said the hack was “obviously based on some illegal activities.”

“Member states like the U.K. are frankly not respecting the Netherlands and partner states,” Albrecht told the Wall Street Journal.
Sophie in ’t Veld, an EU parliamentarian with D66, the Netherlands’ largest opposition party, added, “Year after year we have heard about cowboy practices of secret services, but governments did nothing and kept quiet In fact, those very same governments push for ever-more surveillance capabilities, while it remains unclear how effective these practices are.”

“If the average IT whizzkid breaks into a company system, he’ll end up behind bars,” In ’t Veld added in a tweet Friday

Read more: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/20/gemalto-heist-shocks-europe/

You do realize this affects the world's technological economy in a BIG WAY


Never mind the relationships between friendly countries. First the lawsuits and then what?

Because it won't end there and you know that

Never mind the retooling and reprogramming at the factory and the IT input that will be needed to fix this which will be demanded by all businesses and industries for their private business ............ well.................that adds up.

[DetlefK]

1. That means, NSA/GHCQ now have access to any business-information made on these calls...

If your company has ever discussed sensitive information via phone, your security has now been breached. (It doesn't matter what you do with your loot after stealing it. Stolen is stolen.)

Basically, NSA/GHCQ hacked every single company that used these phones... And every single company can now sue them for the cost of adjusting to the theft and for future damages incurred by leaked sensitive information.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Booz allen who run the NSA is owned by the Carlyle group

Booz allen who run the NSA is owned by the Carlyle group

Carlyle’s Corporate Private Equity division manages a series of leveraged buyout and growth capital investment funds with specific geographic or industry focuses. Carlyle invests primarily in the following industries: aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer and retail, energy and power, health care, real estate, technology and business services, telecommunications and media, and transportation.

So hacked sim cards would never give them an advantage on gaming the system.

[DetlefK]

3. As I said: It doesn't matter what the thief does with the loot.

Businesses have been compromised. If anybody with an economic interest gets his hands on this info (let's say: a government contractor...), these businesses will incur damages. And nobody will be able to prove that it was a crime.

I see two options:

1. The NSA/GHCQ agree to delete those keys in a process to the satisfaction of affected parties.

2. Those companies sue the living shit out of the US and the UK for the costs of coping with the consequences of this hack. Plus future damages, of course.

[Octafish]

4. Gosh. Who would use government office to hack SIM cards and channel inside information to cronies?

Besides the BFEE?

Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American; June 13, 2013

According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.

For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”

And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.

Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: " got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience."

CONTINUED w Links n Privatized INTEL...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group

Spying is a swell way for the swells to stay that way.

[elias49]

5. K&R