Gemalto dismisses accusations of mass theft of access keys to SIM cards

Last week, the largest manufacturer of SIM-cards Gemalto was accused of hacking their security system from the NSA and GCHQ. As a result of the attack, the agency allegedly received keys that can be used to wiretap mobile calls and remotely place malicious programs on phones. The fact of such an operation resulted from the next portion of the documents transferred by Snowden to The Intercept resource.

Gemalto conducted an internal investigation, and published a report on its results . According to the report, indeed, in 2010-2011, the company recorded attacks on the company's network, which testifies in favor of the possibility of a joint operation of the NSA and GCHQ. And in general, the company got used to systematic hacker attacks and successfully fought against them. But as a result of the aforementioned attack, the hackers managed to penetrate no further than the company's office network, and therefore it could not result in obtaining the secret keys for the cards.

The company also claims to have introduced increased security measures long before 2010. And those keys that could theoretically be stolen at this time are only suitable for listening to 2G networks. In addition, Gemalto never sold the cards to four of the twelve mobile operators in the Intercep lists, whose SIM cards were allegedly compromised.
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Gemalto is the world's largest manufacturer of SIM cards. In 2013, its revenue amounted to € 2.4 billion. The company has 12,000 employees, 85 offices and 25 research and development centers located in 44 countries of the world.