cell phone cloning

source: http://www.ndtv.com/template/templat...egory=National

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Saturday, January 8, 2005 (New Delhi):


Mohammad Yaseen, alias Monu, allegedly ran an illegal mobile phone exchange racket in New Delhi.

Yaseen cloned mobile phone numbers and made calls from them while the genuine owners of those numbers were billed.

"He used a software named Petagonia, which can be used for CDMA phones made available by Reliance, Tata and Garuda. It is run on a technique of divisional multiplexing," said Karnail Singh, joint commissioner of police, Special Cell.

"These phones have ESN numbers, which he can cloned using the software. Yaseen used to buy a phone or get the ESN number of any phone and clone it," added Singh.

Expat connection

Expatriates, from places like Dubai, contacted Yaseen to connect them to a number in India. Yaseen would then set up a conferencing call, using a stolen CDMA phone number. He received his payments through a Hawala network.

"They used to buy a phone, convert it into three by cloning it and then use all of them for four hours. He would then throw it without paying the bills. Since Yaseen used to operate from his car, it was difficult to trace him," added Singh.

After his arrest, the police also recovered 23 mobile phones, a laptop and software cds.

The police claim that illegal cloning of mobile phones may be the first such case in the country. But such a flourishing racket once again brings up the need to make our cyber laws more stringent.

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not even gsm cell phones are spared

source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...how/986550.cms

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NEW DELHI: Slowly but surely, technology is showing up its ugly face too. Today it's increasingly being used by new-age criminals in a variety of ways. The latest is mobile phone cloning. Millions of mobile phones users, be it GSM or CDMA, run the risk of having their phones cloned. And the worst part is that there isn’t much that you can do to prevent this.


A resident of Moradabad, Mohammed Yasin was arrested from South Delhi on Friday for cloning mobile phones and using them to facilitate ISD calls. A senior police officer says that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"Yasin used a software called Patagonia which can be used to clone only CDMA phones but there are software packages available in the market which can be used to clone even GSM phones. The man who is trying to clone your GSM phone just needs to know your International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) or instrument number. We are trying to identify phone dealers in Gaffar Market and Nehru Place who can make it possible," says the police officer, adding that Yasin had bought the software from Nehru Place.

The 15-digit IMEI number is programmed into the handset when it is manufactured. The officer cites the example of a businessman who recently cloned the GSM phone of his rival and sent an SMS to the police that a Delhi VVIP would die in a blast. According to joint commissioner of police (special cell) Karnal Singh, not just the SIM but also the IMEI number can be cloned making it difficult to detect the crime.

"The only precaution he can take is to scrutinise the phone bills and find out whether or not it mentions any call which was not made by him. We are talking to service pro-viders to look for a way out," he says.

A SIM can be cloned again and again and they can be used at different places. Police say they can track messages and calls sent by cloned phones. However, if the accused manages to also clone the IMEI number of the handset, for which softwares are available, there is no way he can be traced. Adding to the police woes is the fact that the sale of Patagonia or other softwares used for cloning is legal in the country.

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well any ideas on how it is done and the s\w used?
just curious

Was reading up on cell phone cloning not long ago.

But pretty much, i came to the conclusion it was not very possible, unless you had a specific phone. The Oki something. Ebay didnt have the phone, but keep lookin :P

not sure which article it was, but a google search will give ya something

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Originally posted here by yourdeadin
well any ideas on how it is done and the s\w used?
just curious [/B]

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Well sim cloning is not new.Although CDMA cloaning is something new to me too.
As far as sim cloning is concerned it is done with a hardware rather then a software.
What is a sim ?
It is just anather IC.
So you need a hardware called IC copier which you can get for about $300.
What next?
Borrow someones mobile for a few hours say one day and use its sim and a blank sim for cloning.
The whole process takes about 8-10 hours.

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A SIM can be cloned again and again and they can be used at different places. Police say they can track messages and calls sent by cloned phones. However, if the accused manages to also clone the IMEI number of the handset, for which softwares are available, there is no way he can be traced. Adding to the police woes is the fact that the sale of Patagonia or other softwares used for cloning is legal in the country.

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intresting ,well my delhi police is not so good in hi teCH CRIMES

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Adding to the police woes is the fact that the sale of Patagonia or other softwares used for cloning is legal in the country.

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so there is nothing that we indian's can do about it

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So you need a hardware called IC copier which you can get for about $300.

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kinda costly isn't it

nehru place is very near to my place [i live in new delhi] i think i'll go and enquire there for my self
i tried googling but could not find enough stuff on Patagonia
any one else has some clue on software of such sort ?

me thinks cell phones can also be tapped using the same trick,
u clone the cell and u lissen to all the all he/she recives and makes

hope so

Cloning the IMEI will not allow someone to make calls on your bill, they must clone the SIM to do that with GSM.

Here in the UK, analogue mobiles were turned off in 1999 - before then, cloning was rife, as the ESN could be read off the data channels and cloned into specially modified phones.

Needless to say, these phones did not have SIMs - SIMs and GSM were introduced partially to increase security.

Cloning the IMEI, really doesn't sound too useful to me - I can put my sim into another phone and it will work fine. I can sell my old phone (minus SIM), and the new owner won't have their calls charged to my bill.

My understanding was, that SIM cloning is essentially impossible without physical access to the SIM - something which an attacker wouldn't typically have. But perhaps these Indian fraudsters have a way of doing it.

Slarty

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My understanding was, that SIM cloning is essentially impossible without physical access to the SIM - something which an attacker wouldn't typically have. But perhaps these Indian fraudsters have a way of doing it.

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where there is a will there is a way

me thinks that they have contacts with some shop keepers who sell these chips,
these people clone the sim card even before they are sold and once sold they use them

This is very interesting.... seeing different ways as to perform this, but HOW would someone defend himself from this? Are there any countermeasures out there, and if yes, are theses countermeasures being promoted to the users?

the only counter measure we are being told to do is to check our post paid bills and report any unusal activity to the cops ,that is for CDMA.GSM'cloned phones are still to be caught

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Originally posted here by instronics
This is very interesting.... seeing different ways as to perform this, but HOW would someone defend himself from this? Are there any countermeasures out there, and if yes, are theses countermeasures being promoted to the users?

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Originally posted here by yourdeadin
the only counter measure we are being told to do is to check our post paid bills and report any unusal activity to the cops ,that is for CDMA.GSM'cloned phones are still to be caught

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instronics awareness on mobile users on this subjects is very important take for example sim cloaning............How it is done?
Suppose mr X takes his friends(mr y) sim for a day or two and uses it to create a copy of it using IC copier in order to cloan a sim it takes 8-10 hours atleast first of all you should not give your sim to any one at the first place.
Secondly When mr x and mr y are using the same number(in two sims)When some one say MR z calls that number sometime mr x's mobile will ring and sometimes mr y's mobile will ring( Depends which one is traced first).
When Mr z sends a SMS to that number some times Mr x will get that SMS and some times Mr y will get that SMS.(this has actually happened to a friend of mine whose mobile company by mistake generated two sims with same number so when i used to call that number some times that other guy with same number answered and infact when both of them got Bills that bill was actually sum of cost of calls made by both of them.

Now if there is awareness on this subject between average mobile users all over the world this problem can be detected earlier by them and they don't have to wait for bills to detect problem
(till then Mr y would throw mr x's sim away and start searching for anather inocent victim )

:P

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When Mr z sends a SMS to that number some times Mr x will get that SMS and some times Mr y will get that SMS.(this has actually happened to a friend of mine whose mobile company by mistake generated two sims with same number so when i used to call that number some times that other guy with same number answered and infact when both of them got Bills that bill was actually sum of cost of calls made by both of them.

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2 sims with the same number
well that is a blunder on tha part of the cell company .!!
so one thing is for sure that cell phone phreaking and tapping can be done in some or the same manner .
i guess the sms problem can be solved by changing the message center settings (i think so)

gsm cloned phones are still to be discovered in india

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Here in the UK, analogue mobiles were turned off in 1999 - before then, cloning was rife, as the ESN could be read off the data channels and cloned into specially modified phones.

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question anolog phones were banned all over the world after that rife , so i don think india has analog phones
does it
lemme check it out

Well that SMS thing can't be solved by just changing message center number becuase you are changing your sims settings not cloaned sims setting.

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Originally posted here by yourdeadin
2 sims with the same number
well that is a blunder on tha part of the cell company .!!


gsm cloned phones are still to be discovered in india

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Not really dude Just check it out in your own city there are some suprises waiting for you ...........


TRUST ME :D

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center number becuase you are changing your sims settings not cloaned sims setting.

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how about the two sims are in two different cities,what happens then ?
now you definatly have to change the message center number isn't it so?

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Not really dude Just check it out in your own city there are some suprises waiting for you .......
never heard of it

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hope so
only post paid coustomers can tell if their sims have been cloned not pre paid .they can only complain with no proff that they have not made that call .
post paid cous have an advantage as the location of their cell is poste inthe monthly bill
so one can track down the bad clone

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So, what is the modus operandi of a typical fraudster?

Every mobile handset has a unique factory-coded Electronic Serial Number (ESN) and a Mobile Identification Number (MIN). The crime starts when someone working for a mobile-phone service provider leaks these numbers to grey market operators. The buyer then programs them into new phones which will have the same number as that of the original subscriber.

The accused in the Delhi case used software called Patagonia to clone only CDMA phones (Reliance and Tata Indicom). However, there are software packages that can be used to clone even Global System for Mobile or GSM (e.g. Airtel, Hutch, Idea) phones. In order to clone a GSM phone, knowledge of the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) or instrument number is sufficient.

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well there you have it
http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/arti...749&cat_id=909

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question anolog phones were banned all over the world after that rife

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hi deadagain,

Analog phones were not "banned" anywhere. They are still used even in the USA. Although now days you have to be wayyy out in the middle of nowhere.... like Texas. ;) They stopped using them because: 1) you can monitor everything, 2) you can clone the hell out of them, and 3) they can't get many sunscribers on a cell site. Security and subscriber density drive the technology, imo.

In most modern systems the intstant a cloned SIM card is detected. Wham. And if it gets by that day it's scrubbed in night processes that compare IMEI, SIM card, billing records, location, etc. Any missmatches... wham.

Of course someone on the inside with access to the database could work some foo on the unix boxes but that is the case for any human operated system.

http://www.informationweek.com/story...cleID=60300329

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Question A: How can we secure our enterprise mobile phones and PDAs?


There are locking mechanisms on the cellular phones that require a PIN to access the phone. This would dissuade some attackers, foil others, but might not work against a well-financed and equipped attacker. An 8-digit PIN requires approximately 50,000,000 guesses, but there may be ways for sophisticated attackers to bypass it.

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well i don think that this preventative measure can be used to prevent cell cloning,can; it?

It would help but no one uses a pin. That locks the data on the SIM card. So anytime you want to make a call or look at your phone for any reason, you have to use the PIN. I tried it once and turned it off. It's like password protecting your PC it helps but its not the final answer. But its really the only measure you as a phone user can take to protect your data and your phone number. Other measure rely on the provider to secure access to their systems, completely beyond your control. The good thing is, they are motivated to do it because that adds up to lost revenue.

Another thing you can do is migrate to newer technologies that make cloning very very very very difficult. Especially since all traffic to and from the cell is HIGHLY encrypted. iDEN and GPRS are examples. I don't know much about GPRS (ATT) but iDEN (Nextel) is the ****. If you get a cloned cell phone operating for more than 24 hours on that system without internal help then I would have to say you are the ****. In fact NSA want's you.

You wouln't run 802.11 with WAP, you would migrate if security was a concern.. same for unsecure cell technologies. IMO.

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An authentication key inside the cell phone facilitates the system and all Korean cell phones released this year are equipped with the key.

The authentication system brings in an additional security phase by automatically sending a series of encoded passwords over the airwaves between the cell phone and the network

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http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/2005...8142210220.htm

u said it bro ,u said it
the encryption seems to be the only key to prevrn cel clonng

well it seems that the rife has just begun


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...ow/1023615.cms

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HYDERABAD: The state police has arrested a gang of mobile cloners, a new type of criminal gang involved in duplicating legitimate mobile subscriber.

The gang arrested was involved in the cloning of mobile phones, latest crimes to hit mobile phone users. While the gang members made phone calls from the duplicated numbers, the legitimate subscriber paid the bill.

The gang sold at least 100 such cloned mobiles to the buyers and minted huge amount of money.

According to the Mahesh Bhagwat, DCP, Hyderabad, "Using software they erase the old data of the ESN and MIN number and feed in a new ESN and MIN number. This was their technique. So if there is one legitimate subscriber there may be thousands of clones of his mobile number."

The police further said that internet has made the cloning more easier, with many free softwares available on the internet. All it needs to do so is to copy the Electronic Serial or ESN, and MIN or mobile identification number onto a handset to create its clone.

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hmm i wonder where you find such s/w???
any clues?

Is it possible my cell phone has been cloned
Hello everyone,

I am in need of assistance concerning a potentialy strange situation.

I want to know if it is possible that my cell phone has been cloned. I'm not sure if that's even the correct term.

Here is my situation:

I have been seeing a girl for 6 or 7 months. She is extremely smart. Technically and electronically smart. While we have alot of things in common, electronics isn't one of them. She also has a deceptive side to her and among other things, was very big into eavesdropping with the use of scanners(just to shed some light on her background).

Things haven't been going well for us and i've been moving in another direction.

The strange thing is this. I do a lot of text messaging. I text friends, ex girlfriend, co-workers, family members etc. None of these people are friends with this girl, come into contact with this girl, or are connected with this girl in any way shape or form.

Somehow she knows what I'm texting. She calls me out on dinner plans, travel plans and other things I text in very specific ways. Normally I would not think some sort of cell phone pirating has taken place but I can't thinkof any other answers.

She hasn't had access to my phone at all in the last couple months. Also, I am really good about deleting my messages after reading.

While she is smart, she is also a little crazy and irrational(which is why the separation). And to be honest feel threatend by her having this info. She shows up at places unexpectantly etc etc.

Please help. Is this sort of thing possible? There were plenty of times early on where she has had access to my phone, so if it is possible, she had the chance to do it.

Let me know what you know.

Thanks.

Since you not only posted in an old thread... hence the flashing dates... But then you had the nerve to spam my PM's with three copies of the exact message above I can see immediately that you are clearly not the kind of person that has a thought process clear enough to understand, or probably even listen to, the advice or whatever you are given... Thus I, and anyone else, would be wasting our mental energy on you....

Change your cell phone.... :rolleyes:

Sorry about the logjam of messages. My screen froze for a bit and when it all shook down, I pretty much spammed the **** out of you. My apologies.

I am absolutly setting foot into uncharted waters by using this site.

Just thought someone here, with background or experience, could/would shed some light on this.

Yes, I did get a new phone today, so hopefully I will be good. I would still like to find out more for security reasons.

Sorry for upsetting you. If you have any input I would be glad to hear it.

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I have been seeing a girl for 6 or 7 months. She is extremely smart.

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Rule 1. Never date a woman smarter than you... It'll end in tears... yours...

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She hasn't had access to my phone at all in the last couple months.

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Rule 2. Until you _really_ trust someone they don't get access to your personal stuff... period... ever...

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she is also a little crazy and irrational

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Err... Ladies aren't "crazy and irrational"... They are...er... ladies... learn to live with it... They won't change... neither will you... You will still need at least one...

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Please help. Is this sort of thing possible?

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While I'm not sure of the processes required I'm quite sure that such antics could be done quite easily when she had access to your phone.... Now... You have a new phone... Don't use the same or even similar passwords etc... Make it entirely different.... Oh, and don't give her the number... ;)