Page 31 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec-Jan 2023

DECEMBER 2022-JANUARY 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
DEFENCE BUSINESS MILCIS 31
But Apple and Android devices prevailed and got out of the phone business four years ago, though it remains as a pro- vider of secure communications licensed to other operators.
David Wiseman, Blackberry vice-president for secure communications, told the conference civil mobile phone communications could be readily intercepted.
That has been demonstrated in Ukraine with the moni- toring of Russian personnel resorting to the mobile phone network in the absence of their own secure communications.
Monitoring other people’s communications has occurred throughout history and useful information may be avail- able to the listener, even if actual content is encrypted.
“You don’t necessarily actually need to know the content of the communications to learn a lot,” he said.
Wiseman said organisations such as Google and Meta had built huge businesses on their ability to monitor phone communications metadata and use it to sell irritat- ing advertising.
Metadata is all the information which accompanies any phone communication, including initiating and receiving parties, locations and duration.
“From a foreign adversary perspective, there is a lot of
other things that can happen and information they can learn about your order of battle and distribution of forces ... based on the metadata.”
Wiseman said anyone travelling internationally should assume all cell phone data was captured and logged.
EAVESDROPPING
Then there’s the risk of eavesdropping. In Washington, the US Department of Homeland Security discovered 17 StingRay devices, illicit gadgets for intercepting and moni- toring mobile phone communications.
The original StingRay, manufactured by Harris Corpo- ration is law enforcement-only technology but comparable devices are readily available. StingRays mimic a cell tower and capture all nearby traffic.
Wiseman said one significant issue in phone security and a day-to-day risk was knowing that the person you were communicating with by text was who you think it is.
“At the end of the day you have to use strong encryption – and it has got to be end-to-end encryption and it has to be encryption that you are confident is done correctly,” he said. ■
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