Vodafone to Help Gemalto SIM Card Producer Investigate Hacks by US, UK

A Gemalto spokesperson confirmed to Sputnik that the aim of the hacker attacks by the NSA and the GCHQ was to reach the maximum number of mobile phones.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko – Telecom firm Vodafone will help Gemalto SIM card producer investigate how UK and US intelligence services were able to steal codes that protect mobile communication privacy, a Vodafone spokesman told Sputnik on Friday.

The SIM cards producer was hacked by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Intercept revealed on Thursday, enabling the intelligence agencies to monitor mobile communications worldwide.

"We will support industry bodies and Gemalto in their investigations," Matt Morgan, Vodafone spokesman, told Sputnik.

Morgan added that the revelation by the Intercept relates to the whole industry and not any specific mobile operators.

A Gemalto spokesperson confirmed to Sputnik that the aim of the attack was to reach the maximum number of mobile phones.

"We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such highly sophisticated technique to try to obtain SIM card data," the Gemalto spokesperson said in a statement e-mailed to Sputnik.

Moreover, Gemalto engineers were also reportedly victims of GCHQ spies supported by the NSA.

The details of the breach were discovered in a secret GCHQ document from 2010, given to the Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Major mobile operators, such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and other providers use SIM cards produced by Gemalto, which is based in the Netherlands.