Hacking of Sim Card

[Nervous SLF]

Saw this article about it, isn't anything safe these days ? :ugh:

Code-breaker Karsten Nohl: ?Phone users can?t do much against SIM hackers? ? RT News (http://rt.com/news/karsten-nohl-sim-hack-468/)

Renowned German code-breaker Karsten Nohl, who uncovered a design flaw in around 750 million SIM cards around the world leaving
them vulnerable to hack attacks, told RT that phone users are helpless against hackers.
“SIM cards were the last widely-used [piece of] technology left that no one had broken yet,” said Nohl, who made headlines on Sunday
saying that his team found a flaw that would allow hackers to remotely access personal data and authorize illegal transactions within minutes.
The 31-year-old 'ethical hacker' breaks into secure systems, exploiting their vulnerabilities, and then presents his findings to companies,
hoping they fix any issues before they are identified by criminals.
The UN’s International Telecommunications Union called the evidence “significant” and is to send an alert to all mobile phone
operators warning of what was revealed.

[jimtherev]

Puzzles me why Nohl should publish. Yes, by all means inform the providers - but this article gives the impetus for all the 13-year-old genius hackers (and the more sinister fraternity, of course) to chase this one down. Nohl has given them a good start in the article as to methodology. Won't be long now before they're all doing it.
What does he gain... apart from the 'look at me, ain't I clever' boast, of course? :ugh:

[le Pingouin]

You're rather assuming someone else hasn't already discovered this and has been quietly exploiting it. There's a thriving market for undisclosed security exploits.

[ElanAndrew]

You're rather supposing someone else hasn't already found this and had been silently taken advantage of it. There's a successful industry for undisclosed protection uses.

[mixture]

Puzzles me why Nohl should publish

There are lots of reasons why people publish....

Some just want the free publicity
Some want either full-time employment or juicy consultancy contracts
etc. etc.

I suspect in this case, because every man and his dog manufacture sim cards, publishing is the only realistic way to go in order to ensure that everyone who churns out sim cards is aware.