New security flaw impacts 5G, 4G, and 3G telephony protocols

Further, besides 5G, this new vulnerability also impacts the older 3G and 4G protocols, providing surveillance tech vendors with a new flaw they can abuse to create next-gen IMSI-catchers that work across all modern telephony protocols. This new vulnerability has been detailed in a research paper named “New Privacy Threat on 3G, 4G, and Upcoming5G AKA Protocols,” published last year. Furthermore, with enough IMSI-catchers deployed in an area, this new vulnerability can be easily adapted into a location-tracking attack by observing when a phone profile associated with a known user enters and leaves the coverage of the fake mobile base stations deployed in an area.

Source: www.zdnet.com