Hulton & Steve have presented the new fast & cheap method of cracking A5/1 GSM encryption this week at BlackHat DC Security Conference 2008. This is the result of Cracking A5 and GSM scanner project which has been presented at VNSECON 07 by Steve last year.

FYI, GSM monitoring system has always been there for a long time. However, those devices are very expensive (few hundred thousands to millions USD depends on capabilities, number of channels, antenna,…) and only available to government agents.

Links:

• http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/02/research_may_spell_end_of_mobi.html
• http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-dc-08/bh-dc-08-speakers.html#Hulton
• http://wiki.thc.org/gsm
• http://wiki.thc.org/cracking_a5
• http://conf.vnsecurity.net/program