More mobile operators in West Africa are targets of SS7 attacks than any other African Region, AdaptiveMobile reveals
AdaptiveMobile finds Location Tracking and Information Harvesting
among top attack types
CAPE TOWN, South Africa–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AdaptiveMobile, the world leader in mobile network security, today
announced at AfricaCom
2016 new research findings that show mobile operators in West Africa
are the highest target for SS7 attacks in the continent. The research,
conducted by AdaptiveMobile’s Threat Intelligence Unit, analyses packets
sent over a 4-month period and finds that 39% of all African
operators attacked via SS7 were in West Africa.
Heightened awareness of vulnerabilities in the signalling protocols has
driven an increase in demand for protection against a range of attacks,
including location tracking and call interception. Previous
analysis from AdaptiveMobile showed a number of malicious,
sophisticated platforms operating throughout the continent. New research
shows that 65% of all operators in this analysis were affected by
location tracking attacks and 100% of operators were affected by
subscriber harvesting attacks.
“Through our analysis of SS7 packets sent worldwide, we can see a
regional breakdown of where attackers are targeting,” said Cathal Mc
Daid, chief intelligence officer at AdaptiveMobile. “While West African
operators are heavily targeted, North and East African operators are
also affected with 42% of all operators attacked in this analysis
located in these two regions. Unauthorised access to the SS7 network can
cause significant financial and reputational damage to the operator
community and their subscribers. This is a challenge African operators
are working to combat so they can remain the trusted provider to their
customers.”
AdaptiveMobile’s Signalling Protection secures the SS7 and LTE/Diameter
networks using a unique combination of a carrier-grade signalling
firewall, advanced analytics and the unique intelligence from working
with the nine of the top 10 operator groups to protect 1/5th
of the world’s mobile subscribers. To learn more about the award-winning Signalling
Protection, meet with AdaptiveMobile at AfricaCom from November 15th
– 17th in Cape Town, South Africa, by emailing sales@adaptivemobile.com
###
About AdaptiveMobile
AdaptiveMobile is the world leader in mobile network security protecting
over 1.5 billion subscribers worldwide and the only mobile security
company offering products designed to protect all services on both fixed
and mobile networks through in-network and cloud solutions. With deep
expertise and a unique focus on network-to-handset security,
AdaptiveMobile’s award winning security solutions provide its customers
with advanced threat detection and actionable intelligence, combined
with the most comprehensive security products on the market today.
AdaptiveMobile was founded in 2004 and boasts some of the world’s
largest mobile operators as customers and the leading security and
telecom equipment vendors as partners. The Company is headquartered in
Dublin with offices in North America, Europe, South Africa, Middle East
and Asia Pacific.
Contacts
Press:
AxiCom (UK)
Dan Beattie +44 (0)20 8392 4050
adaptivemobile@axicom.com
or
ACSCom
PR (USA)
Anne Coyle +1 857 222 6363
adaptivemobile@acscompr.com
