Rootkit hack taps Greek prime minister's phone
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Jul 13th 2007 3:39AM
posted Jul 13th 2007 3:39AM
In 2005, Greek authorities discovered a plot hatched and executed by unknown sources which allowed the tapping of wireless phones on the Vodafone network belonging to the country's Prime Minister and other top officials, making it one of the furthest reaching covert infiltrations of a government in history. A recent report from IEEE Spectrum shows that the tap was made possible by a 6,500 line piece of code called a rootkit, the first-ever to be embedded in a phone switch's OS. The complex hack took advantage of aging phone systems by disabling transaction logs on calls and allowing call monitoring on four switches within the teleco's computers, thus sending the call to another phone for monitoring (similar to a legal wiretap). The spies covered their tracks by creating patches on the system which routed the calls around logging software which would have alerted admins, and were only discovered when they tried to update their software. The case clearly exposes holes in call security amongst providers (due largely in part to outdated systems), and suggests the possibility that this kind of thing could easily happen again... to you![Via textually]
Wow hackers have really upgraded. Now instead of hacking celebrity Hollywood sluts...cough cough...Paris Hilton....cough cough...cellphones now they have moved on to government officials.
Corey
No Corey
They have not moved they have been there most of the time, some of their activities were just uncovered.
In other words, you do not concern about the things you are not aware of.
Bjarke, calm down man it was only a joke. I know that you are probably an underground hacker working in some international channels to bring about the inevitable meltdown of the world's cell phone stockpile. Ok, sorry that was another joke.
Corey
That picture conveys shadiness very, very well.
On 9 March 2005, a 38-year-old Greek electrical engineer named Costas Tsalikidis was found hanged in his Athens loft apartment, an apparent suicide. It would prove to be merely the first public news of a scandal that would roil Greece for months.
The next day, the prime minister of Greece was told that his cellphone was being bugged, as were those of the mayor of Athens and at least 100 other high-ranking dignitaries, including an employee of the U.S. embassy.
The victims were customers of Athens-based Vodafone-Panafon, generally known as Vodafone Greece, the country's largest cellular service provider; Tsalikidis was in charge of network planning at the company. A connection seemed obvious. Given the list of people and their positions at the time of the tapping, we can only imagine the sensitive political and diplomatic discussions, high-stakes business deals, or even marital indiscretions that may have been routinely overheard and, quite possibly, recorded.
Did he commit suicide or was he suicided?
Good question... ;)
How insanely creative.
Man I wouldnt want to end up in a greek prison.
Mischa,
perhaps you confuse Greece with another country from the movie "the midnight express"? Greek prisoners as a percentance over the total population must be a European Union all-time low. What are you talikng about?! What prisons?
Vassilis, maybe you assume to much? Maybe Mischa simply has a intense dislike of Feta cheese and broken crockery and not, as you suggest, an entirely rational fear of "dropping the soap".
Did you know that in Greece you can continue your education in a university (For free)and go out every day for your class?Even if your are convicted to murder?And NOTHING EVER HAPPENED like a schizo shooting students?This is what Greece makes to prisoners,gives the chance that others won't even imagine in other countries...
Don't forget to mention that when the Greek information services offered them phones with 1024 bit encryption,they refused to used them because they thought that the information services wanted to listen whatever they say....Stupid to the bone.And that the receivers where positioned somewhere near (or inside?)the American embassy in Athens...
I don't think this is the first time that Engadget have spelt Vodafone wrong.
Custom dictionaries for spell check, guys. They're available for a reason.
Hackers? Um, without a doubt this was done by a covert government spying agency. I have no doubt it was the USA.
no offense, but give the US government a little more credit.
our intelligence agencies are a little more competent than our bumbling president, if we wanted to tap the phones of a another governments leaders, they would find a much less visable way of doing so.
@Grant
Everybody makes mistakes.
BigBird, you are probably right:) I assumed too much. The Britons' sense of humor is extraordinary!
Cheers
Haha well they can tap my cell, hack my computer and do what ever. There is nothing important that i talk about on the phone and the computer that keeps all of my "important" documents has never been connected to the internet lol
It was not a "hack from scratch". The perps used the backdoor left for police wiretapping system.