TOPIC: MOBILE PHONE CLONING

Presented By:Ritik Nagar

ECE 3rd Year

G. L. BAJAJ INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT [Approved by AICTE, Govt. of India & Affiliated to U.P.T.U, Lucknow] Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering 

TECHNICAL SEMINAR (EEC-654)

CONTENTS :

*WHAT IS CELL PHONE CLONING?

*GSM

*CDMA

*IMEI, ESN, MIN

*HOW IS CELL PHONE CLONING DONE?

*ARE OUR CELL PHONES SECURED?

*HOW TO KNOW THAT THE CELL HAS BEEN CLONED?

*DETECTION OF A CLONED PHONE IN A NETWORK

*IMPACTS OF CELL PHONE CLONING

*HOW TO PREVENT CELL CLONING?

*CONCLUSION

WHAT IS CELL PHONE CLONING ?

Cell phone cloning is copying the identity of one mobile telephone to another mobile telephone.

It is the process of taking the programmed information that is stored in a legitimate mobile phone and illegally programming the identical information into another mobile phone.

CONTD…

The result is that the "cloned" phone can make and receive calls and the charges for those calls are billed to the legitimate subscriber. The service provider network does not have a way to differentiate between the legitimate phone and the "cloned" phone.

CELLULAR CLONING

GSM

Global System for Mobile Communications. A digital cellular phone technology based on TDMA GSM phones use a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card that contains user account information. Any GSM phone becomes immediately programmed after plugging in the SIM card, thus allowing GSM phones to be easily rented or borrowed. Operators who provide GSM service are Airtel, Idea etc.

CDMA

Code Division Multiple Access. A method for transmitting simultaneous signals over a shared portion of the spectrum. There is no Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card unlike in GSM. Operators who provides CDMA service in India are Reliance and Tata Indicom.

IMEI (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity)

The IMEI number is used by a GSM network to identify valid devices and therefore can be used for stopping a stolen phone from accessing that network.

ESN (Electronic Serial Number)

ESN number is used to uniquely identify a mobile phone operating on CDMA network.

MIN (Mobile Identification Number)

MIN is a number that is derived from the 10-digit directory telephone number assigned to a mobile station.

HOW IS CELL CLONING DONE?

Cloning involves modifying or replacing the EPROM in the phone with a new chip which would allow you to configure an ESN (Electronic serial number) via software.

You would also have to change the MIN (Mobile Identification Number). Cloning require access to ESN and MIN pairs. ESN/MIN pairs can be discovered in several ways:

CONTD…

*Sniffing the cellular

*Trashing cellular companies or cellular resellers

*Hacking cellular companies or cellular resellers

Cellular thieves can capture ESN/MINs using devices such as cell phone ESN reader or digital data interpreters (DDI). DDIs are devices specially manufactured to intercept ESN/MINs.

Numbers can be recorded by hand, one-by-one, or stored in the box and later downloaded to a computer.

After the ESN/MIN pair is captured, the cloner reprograms or alters the microchip of any wireless phone to create a clone of the wireless phone from which the ESN/MIN pair was stolen

WHAT IS PATAGONIA?

Patagonia is a software available in the market which is used to clone CDMA phones. Using this software a cloner can modify the ESN/MIN of any CDMA phone.

Once we have the ESN/MIN of the target cell phone, we can clone them to another phone using this software.

* After we have modified the EEPROM of our device, it can be used as a cloned device.

* Now we can use our phone for making fraudulent telephone calls but the bills for the calls will go to the legitimate subscriber.

ARE OUR CELL PHONES SECURED?

*We have seen that CDMA phones can easily be cloned but when it comes to GSM ,the task is tougher but not impossible for expert hackers.

*With the shift to GSM digital, the phone companies assure us that the bad old days are over and mobile phones are secure and privacy friendly. But this not entirely true so we still need to be careful about this matter.

HOW TO KNOW THAT THE CELL HAS BEEN CLONED?

*Frequent wrong number phone calls to your phone, or hang-ups.

*Difficulty in placing outgoing calls.

*Difficulty in retrieving voice mail messages.

*Incoming calls constantly receiving busy signals or wrong numbers. Unusual calls appearing on your phone bills

DETECTION OF A CLONED PHONE IN A NETWORK

*Duplicate Detection

*Velocity Trap

*Usage Profiling

*Call Counting

DUPLICATE DETECTION

*The network sees the same phone in several places at the same time.

*Reactions include shutting them all off so that the real customer will contact the operator because he lost the service he is paying for.

*After verification the service will be provided only to the real subscriber.

Duplicate Detection

VELOCITY TRAP

* It notices when the mobile phone seems to be moving at impossible, or most unlikely speeds.

*For example, if a call is first made in Delhi, and five minutes later, another call is made from the same number but this time in Mumbai then it is obvious that there must be two phones with the same identity on the network.

*So service will be terminated until the real user is verified.

USAGE PROFILING

*Profiles of customers' phone usage are kept, and when discrepancies are noticed, the customer is contacted.

*For example, if a customer normally makes only local network calls but is suddenly placing calls to foreign countries for hours of airtime, it indicates a possible clone

CALL COUNTING

*Both the phone and the network keep track of calls made with the phone, and should they differ more than the usually allowed one call, service is denied.

IMPACT OF PHONE CLONING

*Each year, the mobile phone industry loses millions of dollars in revenue because of the cloned phones as their calls are billed to other phones owned by innocent third persons.

*Many criminals like drug dealers use cloned cellular telephones for illegal activities.

*Terrorists have been known to use cloned phones to escape law enforcement efforts aimed at tracking their whereabouts.

HOW TO PREVENT PHONE CLONING?

*User verification using PIN(Personal Identification Number)

*Blacklisting of stolen phones

*Traffic analysis

*Electrically checking the ESN/MIN

CONCLUSION

To avoid such abuse to telecommunication system it is absolutely necessary to check out the weakness and vulnerability of existing telecom systems.

If it is planned to invest in new telecom equipment, a security plan should be made and the system should be tested before being implemented.

REFERENCES

*http://www.hackinthebox.org

*http://realhackerspoint.blogspot.in

 

*http://www.google.com

*http://www.wikipedia.com

THANK YOU