Rootkit hack taps Greek prime minister's phone

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 The case clearly exposes holes in call security amongst providers (due largely in part to outdated systems), and suggests the possibility that this kind of thing could easily happen again...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]

[Corey H @ Jul 13th 2007 4:02AM]

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

[Bjarke Andersen @ Jul 13th 2007 8:22AM]

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.

[Corey H @ Jul 13th 2007 1:45PM]

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

[BillDanos @ Jul 13th 2007 4:12AM]

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.

[fsx @ Jul 13th 2007 8:08AM]

Did he commit suicide or was he suicided?

[BillDanos @ Jul 13th 2007 8:12AM]

Good question... ;)

[fernando @ Jul 13th 2007 4:13AM]

That picture conveys shadiness very, very well.

[asaa @ Jul 13th 2007 4:39AM]

How insanely creative.

[Mischa Lockton @ Jul 13th 2007 4:42AM]

Man I wouldnt want to end up in a greek prison.

[vassilis @ Jul 13th 2007 5:38AM]

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?

[BigBirdUK @ Jul 13th 2007 7:39AM]

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".

[zed @ Jul 13th 2007 6:23PM]

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...

[zed @ Jul 13th 2007 6:27AM]

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...

[Taylor @ Jul 13th 2007 7:25AM]

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.

[Gary @ Jul 13th 2007 7:44AM]

Hackers? Um, without a doubt this was done by a covert government spying agency. I have no doubt it was the USA.

[Grant @ Jul 13th 2007 8:08AM]

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.

[Logik @ Jul 13th 2007 9:40AM]

@Grant

Everybody makes mistakes.

[vassilis @ Jul 13th 2007 8:57AM]

BigBird, you are probably right:) I assumed too much. The Britons' sense of humor is extraordinary!
Cheers

[bjrcboy @ Jul 13th 2007 11:26AM]

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

[asmx @ Jul 13th 2007 1:20PM]

It was not a "hack from scratch". The perps used the backdoor left for police wiretapping system.