Hackers buy Nokia 1100 phones

In the process of investigating the case of mail fraud in the Netherlands, the police faced a very interesting fact - an unknown buyer gave 25 thousand euros for the Nokia 1100 phone .

This budget model was released at the end of 2003 and was intended for emerging markets, including Russia. The price of the phone was less than 100 euros.

In an attempt to find out why cybercriminals are willing to pay so much money for a cheap and seemingly unremarkable device, the police turned to Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations. Ultrascan experts found that not all Nokia 1100 devices were attracted to criminals, but only those manufactured at the Nokia factory in Bochum (Germany).

This series of devices was found to be defective due to problems in outdated software created back in 2002. The problems found make it possible to reprogram the device and intercept one-time Transaction Authentication Number (TAN) codes with it. Now many European banks send such codes to the client’s personal phone in the form of SMS messages. Having received the TAN code, the user confirms the money transfer, however, using a hacked Nokia 1100 phone, attackers can intercept the one-time password and TAN code, and then transfer the money to their account.

In addition, Nokia 1100 devices made in Bochum not only intercept messages sent to other numbers. For example, in 2005, the Dutch police were unable to determine the location of subscribers sending their SMS messages from Nokia 1100 phones using standard methods. Later on, the police were able to prove that the sender was in the right place at the right time, but there was a problem with the devices Nokia 1100 remains.

It is interesting to note that Nokia has sold more than 200 million copies of the Nokia 1100 and models based on it worldwide , but the number of vulnerable devices is not exactly known.

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