Malicious hackers could take down cellular networks in large cities by inundating their popular text-messaging services with the equivalent of spam, said computer security researchers, who will announce the findings of their research today.
Such an attack is possible, the researchers say, because cellphone companies provide the text-message service to their networks in a way that could allow an attacker who jams the message system to disable the voice network as well.
And because the message services are accessible via the Internet, cellular networks are open to the “denial of service” attacks that occur regularly online, in which computers send so many messages to a target that the rogue data blocks other machines from connecting.
By pushing 165 messages a second into the network, said Patrick McDaniel, a professor of computer science and engineering at Pennsylvania State University and the lead researcher on the paper, “you can congest all of Manhattan.”
McDaniel and the other faculty author, Thomas La Porta, have extensive experience in computer security. The findings are expected to be released today at Penn State and as a formal research paper at a computer security conference next month.