“Telecom insiders understand that the vulnerabilities in the SS7 signaling protocol used in 3G roaming have enabled the development of commercial surveillance products that provide their operators with anonymity, multiple access points and attack vectors, a ubiquitous and globally-accessible network with an unlimited list of targets, and virtually no financial or legal risks.”
Only a quarter of mobile operators worldwide run a signaling firewall. The rest let anyone with a leased Global Title ask where your phone is. Carriers rent those addresses out as a business line, and lessees sublease them to hide who is asking. In the first half of 2023, about 171 networks from 100 countries sent tracking messages into African networks. The industry’s threat-sharing hub costs up to $136,460 a year to join.