Three researchers have shown that using thousands of infected phones could trigger automated DDoS attacks, and drop the US emergency telephone system "for days".
The theoretical attack uses a malware that covers International Mobile A telephone's Subscriber Identity (IMSI). The malware only shows the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMSEI) number, which hides the origin of the attacks and does not allow recognition and acccase of the device in some blacklist.
Researchers Mordechai Guri, Yisroel Mirsky and Yuval Elovici from Ben-Gurion University report that malicious software could make calls without the owners of the device knowing it.
So at 911 DDoS: Threat, Analysis and Mitigation [PDF] report that with 6.000 infected smartphones they could block a local US emergency call system (911).
“A rootkit placed within the baseband firmware of a mobile phone can mask even random cellular identifiers, creating a device that has no real identification within the cellular network.”
"Such anonymous phones can make repeated emergency calls and cannot be blocked from the network or emergency call centers, technically or legally."
So according to the researchers 200.000 infected devices could drop them services emergencies across the US.
