SIM card maker Gemalto has responded to claims made in recent Snowden leaks that government spies hacked encryption keys it used to protect cell phone communications.

In a Friday statement, Gemalto, which has headquarters in Austin, Texas as well as in France and Singapore, said it will “devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques” outlined in a Thursday article published in The Intercept.

Gemalto, the largest SIM card maker in the world, makes 2 billion SIM cards each year, which are then used in mobile devices distributed by major providers like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.

The company was reportedly hacked in 2010 and 2011 by a operatives working for the National Security Agency (NSA) and its British equivalent GCHQ, leaks revealed. By utilizing intelligence from NSA’s X-KEYSCORE program (which obtained emails hosted by SIM card, mobile firm and tech company servers), GCHQ operatives “cyberstalked Gemalto employees, scouring their emails in an effort to find people who may have had access to the company’s core networks and Ki-generating [or encryption key-generating] systems,” The Intercept article said.

Read the Full Article: Source – SC Magazine
http://www.scmagazine.com/gemalto-has-responded-to-claims-made-in-recent-snowden-leaks/article/399439/

source not found