LONDON (Kashmir English): British newspaper ‘Financial Times’ praises CDF Asim Munir as successful multilateral strategistBritish newspaper Financial Times has claimed that Iran made organized efforts to locate the mobile phones of US military personnel and contractors in the Middle East during the ongoing conflict.
According to a report, this matter has raised new concerns among US lawmakers regarding the digital security of their military personnel.
According to the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera, Financial Times, citing telecommunications data, cyber security experts, and officials familiar with the matter, reported that Iran ran a coordinated mobile phone tracking campaign to monitor the movements of US military personnel and contractors before and during the war.
The FT report said various telecom networks in the Middle East blocked several signals, known as SS7 pings. Through these signals, the potential geographic location of mobile phones using roaming abroad can be determined, it claimed.
Financial Times quoted two cyber security experts as having told to them that available evidence shows these operations were being carried out to target specific mobile phones.
The report states that these activities began in late February before the US and Israel attacks on Iran and continued until the early days of the war, when Iran carried out missile and drone attacks on US military bases and installations in the region.
“Iran tried to track presence of US military personnel”
The Financial Times said some officials in Gulf countries suspected that Iran or its allies tried to track the presence of US military personnel and contractors by taking advantage of the roaming agreements of local mobile operators.
The report, citing a US official, also stated that Iran-linked elements used commercially available advertising databases to locate the mobile phones of US personnel in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
The British publication quoted Gary Miller, a senior researcher at the cyber security organization Citizen Lab, as having said that Iran possesses the capability to obtain individuals’ locations in real-time.
According to him, it should not be surprising if Iran is using mobile network access or the SS7 system to monitor US users in the region.
According to the FT report, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) informed Congress in April that it had received several reports mentioning efforts by opposing elements to monitor or target US personnel using commercial location data.
However, CENTCOM stated that it has taken necessary security measures to protect its personnel.
