Cybersecurity Policy Report, FBI, Ofcom Discuss SS7 Security Issues With FCC, (Jul 16, 2024)

By Lynn Stanton

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) have communicated with the FCC about its March public notice seeking comment on the implementation by communications service providers of security countermeasures in an effort to prevent the exploitation of Signaling System 7 (SS7) and Diameter protocols to track the location of consumers through mobile devices (CPR, March 27), according to a letter to members of Congress from FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel dated July 8 and released yesterday.

“In the interest of promoting full discussions on potentially sensitive matters, the March 27, 2024 Public Notice is exempt from the Commission’s ex parte rules, so neither has filed comments in the record,” the Chairwoman said.

“At present, we are reviewing the record, which will inform our next steps. In doing so, our staff is coordinating with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center to confirm that we have a complete picture of the threat landscape. Additionally, we intend to follow-up with those commenters who provided information about incidents of location tracking and leasing of Global Titles by United States providers,” she added.

Global Titles are SS-7–style addresses “that can be used to route messages to other networks with SS7. … There is no central authority that distributes Global Titles. Carriers around the world with assigned telephone numbers hold Global Titles,” she explained.

News: FederalLegislation DataSecurity