While nearly 150 world leaders were preparing to get to Manhattan for the United States Secret Service was silently dismantling a huge telecommunications network hidden in the New York area, a system that according to researchers could have paralyzed cell phone towers, blocked called 911 and flooded networks with chaos in the precise moment in which the city was more vulnerable. The newspaper and the newspaper have been confirmed . The authorship is about to see.
This system, consisting of more than 300 SIM servers with more than 100,000 SIM cards and grouped less than 56 kilometers from the UN headquarters -together with the East River -represents one of the most serious communications threats discovered in US territory. Researchers warn that the system could have interrupted cell service in a city that depends on it not only for its daily life, but also for emergency response and the fight against terrorism.
The officials say that the demolition, which occurs while foreign leaders filled hotels from the center and caravans of vehicles congested Manhattan, highlights a new risk border: plots aimed at the invisible infrastructure that keeps connected to a modern city.
The Network was discovered as part of a broader investigation of the Secret Service on Telecommunications threats aimed at senior government officials, according to researchers. Distributed in multiple sites, servers functioned as simulated cell phone banks, capable of generating mass calls and messages, saturating local networks and masking criminals who used encryption communications, according to the authorities.
“It is undeniable what this system is capable of doing,” said Matt McCool, a special agent in charge of the Secret Service Field Office in New York. “You can knock down mobile phone towers, thus preventing people from communicating, right? … You can’t send text messages or use the cell phone. And if that adds some other event related to the United Nations General Assembly, you know, get to think, it could be catastrophic for the city.”
“It could be catastrophic for the city”
The officials said they have not discovered a direct plot to disturb the UN General Assembly and indicated that credible threats are not known for New York City.
The forensic analysis is still in its early stages, but agents believe that state actors – perpetrators of certain countries – used the system to send encrypted messages to organized crime groups, cartels and terrorist organizations, McCool said. The authorities have not revealed details about the specific government or criminal groups linked to the network so far.
“We need to do forensic analysis on 100,000 cell phones, essentially all phone calls, all text messages, everything that has to do with communications, see where these numbers end,” McCool said, noting that the process will take time.
An extensive and expensive operation
When the agents entered the facilities, they found rows of servers and shelves full of SIM cards. More than 100,000 were already active, according to the researchers, but there was also a large number waiting to be deployed, which shows that the operators prepared to duplicate or even triple the capacity of the network, said McCool. He described it as a well -financed and highly organized company, which cost millions of dollars only in hardware and SIM cards.
The operation had the ability to send up to 30 million text messages per minute, McCool told AP.
“The United States Secret Service Protection Mission is based on prevention, and this investigation makes possible the bad actors that imminent threats to our protected will be investigated, tracked and dismantled immediately,” said the director of the agency, Sean Curran, in a statement.
The authorities also warned about the ravages that the network could have caused if it had remained intact. McCool compared the potential impact with the mobile phone blackouts that followed the attacks and the bomb attack on the Boston marathon, when the networks collapsed under pressure. In this case, he said, the attackers would have been able to force that type of blackout at the time they wanted.
“Could there be others?” McCool said. “It would be imprudent to think that there are no other networks that are being created in other cities in the United States.”
