$1,500 System Can Intercept Your Mobile Calls

Security researcher Chris Paget brought in the home made cell phone tower antenna that can work itself as a legitimate AT&T or T-Mobile tower to intercept all outgoing calls. The system is composed of two RF directional antennas which emits only 25 milliwatts, that is a laptop and open source software. The entire setup cost $1,500, and with a major portion of that being from the laptop. The cell tower spoofing system is able to capture and record all outgoing call conversations by intercepting the audio and then routing it through a VoIP system. Presently, the system is unable to intercept data, even if it's transmitted over EDGE.

Calls that are inbound to those connect to the spoofed cell phone tower which will be routed straight to voicemail. GSM phones and towers actually have these encryption features. Phones are supposed to have the capability to tell the customer when the phone call is no longer encrypted; Paget demonstrated that his technology by capturing about 30 phones on AT&T in the nearby vicinity. Anyone trying to make a call will first received a message telling them that their calls were being recorded in a USB stick. Paget said that he could jam 3G signals and force phones to fall back to 2G mode so that they'd be susceptible to his interceptor.