A few days ago, a security firm named Adaptive Mobile issued a cyber threat warning to all telecom operators operating worldwide by saying that smartphones are vulnerable to Simjacker attacks. Now the same firm has compiled and released a list of countries where telecom operators are offering to their users SIM cards which are vulnerable to Simjacker attacks.
Located across 5 continents, the list of telecom providers which are vulnerable is as follows-
Central America– Guatemala, Belize, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico.
South America- Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay
Africa- Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon.
Europe- Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus
Asia- Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia,
Note 1- Simjacker is a kind of software exploits which helps track down the mobile location of users about various mobile carriers through malicious SMS messages. While espionage by collecting location data of users happens to be one vector of Simjacker. Researchers argue that the exploit can also be used to launch multiple levels of cyberattacks such as frauds, scam calls, data leak, denial of service attacks/DDoS and phishing.
Note 2- Sim cards which come pre-installed with Java Applet named S@T browser is said to be vulnerable to the disclosed attacks.
Note 3- According to mobile security researchers from AdaptiveMobile LTD Simjacker might be the work of a foreign nation which is trying to conduct espionage on a set of individuals working for governments, politics and business field.
