Strange Loop

The Attacker Has Expensive Radio Equipment, But Your Android Phone Is Resilient

Some of the most dangerous cellular attacks targeting activists, journalists, and the general public have relied on GSM, the 2G cellular protocol. The 2G attack surface is so large that it leaves users vulnerable to everything from real time location tracking attacks, communication interception attacks, and receiving malware delivered over-the-air by anyone nearby.

A few years ago Android set out to work towards disabling all 2G protocols to protect users from this massive attack surface. This talk is (1) part technical deepdive into what it’s like to disable a major communications protocol at the radio hardware level in a fragmented ecosystem, (2) an overview of cellular fundamentals (e.g. what your phone is actually doing when it “connects” to a cell tower), and (3) part history lesson about the extensivity of phone radio surveillance and its use by cyber mercenaries all over the world.

Yomna Nasser

Software Engineer @ Android

Yomna is a member of the Android Connectivity Security team, and previously worked at EFF on certbot (a popular "Let's Encrypt" client). She is interested in the mysteries of phone systems, both modern and historical.