Personal Security - Protect Against Cell Phone Cloning

This week, we discovered that our Sprint cellular phones were cloned. This is usually done to make fraudulent telephone calls. The BILL for the calls goes to the legitimate subscriber – us! I am finding out that this cloning phenomenon is very popular in areas with large immigrant populations. The cloner or THIEF is also able to make effectively anonymous calls, which attracts another group of interested law-breakers. Thanks to my wife for checking our account periodically, the anomaly was caught early.

As a reminder to everyone, check your cell phone bill each month, whether for plan features or charges you didn’t ask for, all the way to issues like what my wife found on our account – anonymous long distance charges and unknown phone numbers. It is especially important because many people opt for auto pay on a cell phone bill, and given that these issues generally take a couple of weeks to research and resolve, auto pay could be triggered before the bill is fixed, prompting other issues in your bill paying lifestyle.

Speaking with a family member that works in a Sprint call center and with the Sprint customer service representative, they have a fraud department, which is where we were directed to once we called Sprint initially. Their sole job is to research issues like this cloning fraud case. They are generally responsive. In our case, it was obvious that our accounts were tampered with. I can only assume the fraud department analyzes the cell phone usage pattern. The fraud department works well with us and will work well with you if it is obvious.

Cloning required access to ESN and MIN pairs. ESN/MIN pairs were discovered in several ways:

Sniffing the cellular network
Trashing cellular companies or cellular resellers
Hacking cellular companies or cellular resellers
Cloning still works under the AMPS/NAMPS system, but has fallen in popularity as older clone-able phones are more difficult to find and newer phones have not been successfully reverse-engineered. Cloning has been successfully demonstrated under GSM, but the process is not easy and currently remains in the realm of serious hobbyists and researchers. Furthermore, cloning as a means of escaping the law is difficult because of the additional feature of a radio fingerprint that is present in the transmission signal of every mobile phone. This fingerprint remains the same even if the ESN or MIN is changed. Mobile phone companies can use the mismatch in the fingerprints and the ESN and MIN to identify fraud cases.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines cellular fraud (cell fraud) as the unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service. At one time, cloning of cellular phones accounted for a large portion of cell fraud. As a result, the Wireless Telephone Protection Act of 1998 expanded prior law to criminalize the use, possession, manufacture or sale of cloning hardware or software. Currently, the primary type of cell fraud is subscriber fraud. The cellular industry estimates that carriers lose more than $150 million per year due to subscriber fraud.

BOTTOM LINE:

Remember, to prevent subscriber fraud, make sure that your personal information is kept private when purchasing anything in a store or on the Internet. Protecting your personal information is your responsibility. For cell phone cloning fraud, the cellular equipment manufacturing industry has deployed authentication systems that have proven to be a very effective countermeasure to cloning. Call your cellular phone carrier for more information.

For more information on protecting your personal information, see the FCC’s Protecting Your Privacy consumer fact sheet at www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/protectingprivacy.html. For information about other communications issues, visit the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Web site at www.fcc.gov/cgb, or contact the FCC’s Consumer Center by e-mailing fccinfo@fcc.gov; calling 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY; faxing 1-866-418-0232; or writing to:

Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division
445 12th Street, SW
Washington , DC 20554