Wireless carriers quick to patch SIM card vulnerability

LAS VEGAS, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- Wireless carriers have fixed a bug that could have let criminals hack into hundreds of millions of cellphones, the security expert who exposed the flaw says.

Cryptographer Karsten Nohl of Security Research Labs in Germany discovered the flaw that would allow the hacking of SIM cards found in cellphones and other mobile devices.

Flaws in the encryption keys exploited by a hidden SMS text message could allow access to the SIM cards, which can identify the phone's owner and store some sensitive personal data, such as payment information.

Nohl, scheduled to demonstrate his SIM card hack Wednesday at the Black Hat computer-security conference in Las Vegas, instead announced five wireless carriers had quickly pushed out updates to fix the problem.

The carriers took advantage of the same vulnerability Nohl had discovered to hack into their own SIM cards and rewrite parts of their operating systems.

"They're adopting hacking methods to make it more secure," Nohl said at the Black Hat event. "Abusing the Java vulnerabilities to update the card is the neatest outcome of this."