The satellite telephony is less secure than believed

In some regions, the common communication via mobile phones is not available, due to lack of necessary infrastructure. In war zones, developing countries and on the high seas is usually only feasible to use satellite phones, which are connected by radio directly to a satellite. This passes the incoming call to a ground station. From there, communication also uses the public telephone network.

So far, thanks to this method, the encryption algorithms A5-GMR-1 and A5-GMR-2 of the "European Institute of Telecommunications Standards" (ETSI), the satellite phone appeared to be safe from intruders. However, a team of researchers has managed to crack the encryption algorithms from ETSI, thereby revealing that the system has obvious weaknesses.

In less than an hour and with simple tools, these researchers from the "Horst Goertz Institute of Technology Security Information (HGI)" of the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, found the encryption key that is needed to intercept telephone conversations. Using open source software based on the results of previous research, were able to exploit security weaknesses.

To verify the results, the team of "Benedikt Driessen" intercepted and recorded his own telephone conversations. Carsten Willems, from the research team, admitted they were surprised of the lack of additional security measures that would have dramatically complicated their work to intercept telephone conversations.

Encryption algorithms are used to protect user privacy, so it should be sufficiently robust to withstand at least the hacker attacks made ​​from current resources or moderate. "Our results show that the use of satellite phones holds hazards, and that the current encryption algorithms are not at the required height," says Ralf Hund, another of the experts from the University.