Bombshell Report Finds Phone Network Encryption Was Deliberately Weakened
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4avnan/bombshell-report-finds-phone-network-encryption-was-deliberately-weakened
^ In case anyone missed it in the article:
It is true that modern bands use much stronger encryption. The issue is that new phones still support the old bands, which still use the weak encryption.
You might say, "So what? I'm always on a 4G or 5G network."
Well, there are attacks that force phones to 2G so that this vulnerability may be exploited.
My phone has an option to disable 2G service, which I toggle off to (hopefully) prevent this.
Also, this seems predicated on the notion that someone is not only willing but able to degrade service (across HOW many towers? For HOW many hundreds of people?) in order to gain the (completely speculative) ability to access some specific phone or other that JUST HAPPENS to be in the area affected.
Is this something I should invest a lot of energy into being concerned about?
@voltronic
My phone, at least, announces if I've dropped down to 3G, much less 2G.
Has you ever actually seen something like this occur in real life?