August 18, 2022

Motherboard: How a Third-Party SMS Service Was Used to Take Over Signal Accounts

Motherboard: How a Third-Party SMS Service Was Used to Take Over Signal Accounts. “Last week, hackers broke into the systems of Twilio, a cloud communications company that provides infrastructure to other companies to automate sending text messages to their users. By breaking into Twilio systems, hackers could have sent text messages to victims, and read their text messages as well. This potentially gave the hackers a chance to take over any victim’s accounts that were tied to their phone number on services that use Twilio. Crucially, Twilio provides text verification services for the encrypted messaging app Signal.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
February 2, 2022

New York Times: Americans Can’t Quit SMS

New York Times: Americans Can’t Quit SMS. “The continued prevalence of SMS in the U.S. is a reminder that the most resilient technologies aren’t necessarily the best ones. It’s also another way that America’s smartphone habits are unlike the rest of the world’s in ways that can be helpful but can also hold us back. I know that many Americans use whatever text app is on their phone and don’t think too hard about it. Fine! But let me explain why we should reflect a bit on this communications technology.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 5, 2021

Motherboard: Company That Routes Billions of Text Messages Quietly Says It Was Hacked

Motherboard: Company That Routes Billions of Text Messages Quietly Says It Was Hacked. “A company that is a critical part of the global telecommunications infrastructure used by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and several others around the world such as Vodafone and China Mobile, quietly disclosed that hackers were inside its systems for years, impacting more than 200 of its clients and potentially millions of cellphone users worldwide.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
August 17, 2021

The Conversation: How hackers can use message mirroring apps to see all your SMS texts — and bypass 2FA security

The Conversation: How hackers can use message mirroring apps to see all your SMS texts — and bypass 2FA security. “Major vendors such as Microsoft have urged users to abandon 2FA solutions that leverage SMS and voice calls. This is because SMS is renowned for having infamously poor security, leaving it open to a host of different attacks.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
April 2, 2020

Digital Inspiration: How to Send SMS Messages with Google Sheets and your Android Phone

Digital Inspiration: How to Send SMS Messages with Google Sheets and your Android Phone. “There are services, Twilio and Vonage for example, that let you send text messages programmatically to any phone number in the world. You can either build an SMS solution on top of these messaging APIs or you can take a simpler and less expensive route – build your own text sending app with Google Sheets and MIT’s App Inventor.”

Useful Stuff 0
December 15, 2019

Hongkiat: Send Emails to Any Mobile Number With This Chrome Extension

Hongkiat: Send Emails to Any Mobile Number With This Chrome Extension. “Afraid of having your urgent email being lost in the recipient’s email account? Why not send it directly to the recipient’s phone number instead. CloudHQ has created an Chrome extension that lets you do just that directly from Gmail itself.” I took a cursory look at CloudHQ and didn’t see anything alarming, but I still wouldn’t use this for anything sensitive.

Useful Stuff 0
December 3, 2019

USA Today: ‘Hundreds of millions of people’ may have had their text messages exposed online, researchers say

USA Today: ‘Hundreds of millions of people’ may have had their text messages exposed online, researchers say. “A database housing millions of private SMS text messages was left open online for an extended period of time, a team of researchers at the online privacy company vpnMentor said Sunday. The Texas-based text messaging firm TrueDialog is thought to be responsible for the leak, the cybersecurity experts said.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
October 31, 2019

Ars Technica: Researchers unearth malware that siphoned SMS texts out of telco’s network

Ars Technica: Researchers unearth malware that siphoned SMS texts out of telco’s network. “Dubbed ‘Messagetap’ by researchers from the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye, the recently discovered malware infects Linux servers that route SMS messages through a telecom’s network. Once in place, Messagetap monitors the network for messages containing either a preset list of phone or IMSI numbers or a preset list of keywords”

Security & Legal Issues 0
May 24, 2019

Make SMS Useful Again: 7 Services That Use SMS Messages Cleverly (MakeUseOf)

MakeUseOf: Make SMS Useful Again: 7 Services That Use SMS Messages Cleverly. “Thanks to instant messaging apps, you probably don’t use plain old SMS on your phone too often. Messengers like WhatsApp and Telegram are faster, more reliable, and have tons of other modern features SMS lacks. But SMS is around to stay on your phone and despite what you may think, it has a lot to offer. We’ve rounded up several cool services that make good use of SMS.”

Useful Stuff 0
November 16, 2018

TechCrunch: A leaky database of SMS text messages exposed password resets and two-factor codes

TechCrunch: A leaky database of SMS text messages exposed password resets and two-factor codes. “A security lapse has exposed a massive database containing tens of millions of text messages, including password reset links, two-factor codes, shipping notifications and more. The exposed server belongs to Voxox (formerly Telcentris), a San Diego, Calif.-based communications company. The server wasn’t protected with a password, allowing anyone who knew where to look to peek in and snoop on a near-real-time stream of text messages.”

Security & Legal Issues 0

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