EXCLUSIVE: US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266821/us-hacks-chinese-mobile-phone-companies-steals-sms-data-edward-snowden

By Lana Lam and Stephen Chen
South China Morning Post
June 23, 2013

The US government is hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to steal 
millions of text messages, Edward Snowden has told the South China Morning 
Post. And the former National Security Agency contractor claims he has the 
evidence to prove it.

The former CIA technician and NSA contractor, hiding in Hong Kong after 
the US sought his arrest, made the claims after revealing to the Post that 
the NSA had snooped on targets in Hong Kong and on the mainland.

“There’s far more than this,” Snowden said in an interview on June 12. 
“The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cell phone companies 
to steal all of your SMS data.”

Text messaging is the most preferred communication tool in mainland China, 
used widely by ordinary people and government officials from formal work 
exchanges to small chats.

Government data show that the Chinese exchanged almost 900 billion text 
messages in 2012, up 2.1 per cent from the year before. China Mobile is 
the world’s largest mobile network carrier, with 735 million subscribers 
by the end of May. China Unicom, the second largest, has 258 million 
users. China Telecom comes in third with 172 million users.

[...]

_______________________________________________
ISN mailing list
ISN () lists infosecnews org
http://lists.infosecnews.org/mailman/listinfo/isn_lists.infosecnews.org