The German publishing house "Heise" reports in its online news about a
remote configuration change of mobile phones via the short message service
(SMS) which is available in GMS networks:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/pmz-24.01.02-000/
The Swiss telco Swisscom has confirmed that it has sent to selected
customers special SMS messages that deleted roaming information on the SIM
cards of the customers' mobile phones. Swisscom says that the purpose for
the messages is to test for the introduction of new services in the Swisscom
mobile phone network. The customers have not been informed about the
change. The SMS appeared as empty messages sent from the phone number
"0800".
The magazine also reported that insiders believe that the modification of
the roaming information was to direct traffic to networks owned by Vodafone
-- which acquired a 25% share of Swisscom on april last year.
Customers have to re-enter the information to their phones manually.
It would be interesting:
* If there is any security mechanism protecting anyone from sending
such "special" messages.
* Which setting on the mobile phone can be changed (or probably
retrieved from the phone) without knowledge to the customer.
* If the network provider must implement such features, I do not
understand why this must happen unperceived by the customer.
Why not send a message telling people what will happen?
S.Llabres [Llabres via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 89]
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