Detect, Avoid IMSI-Catcher Attacks with IMSI-Catcher Detector

XDA

Detect, Avoid IMSI-Catcher Attacks with Android IMSI-Catcher Detector

By Tomek Kondrat

Published Nov 22, 2014

IMSI-Catcher Detector is an Android-based project to detect and avoid fake base stations (IMSI-Catchers) in GSM/UMTS Networks.

Privacy is always an important topic, as well as a delicate one to cover. Corporations spend millions to provide the best security systems, which are then quite often cracked by hackers or security researchers. You might not be aware that some fake cell towers (a.k.a. IMSI-Catchers, StingRays, GSM Interceptors, Subscriber Trackers) can be used to track and monitor specific groups of users and even remotely manipulate a particular phone. Scary, right? Unfortunately, few parts of the world are free of such unethical practices. There are various conspiracy theories--some credible, others not so much--involving the use of IMSI-Catchers in various contexts such as surveillance/spying and assasinations. Today, IMSI-Catchers are a global phenomenon that exist not only in the US, and are used by both law enforcement and other groups.

Now, for the good news. As you know, the XDA forums are full of brilliant people who use their development knowledge to provide some of the best services to Android users, especially in parts of the world where Google themselves tend to fail. XDA Recognized Developer E:V:A and XDA Senior Member SecUpwN and their team members came up with an idea to create an app that identifies and possibly blocks fake cell towers from being used by your phone, thus protecting your privacy. This is how the IMSI Catcher/Spy Detector project was born, here on XDA. All development is fully open-source under GPL v3+ and located in an official GitHub repository. To protect smartphone users and make this app what it is meant to be, the project creators are now actively searching for Android developers, baseband hackers, and brave whistle blowers!

Today, the AIMSICD project is celebrating its first birthday since it launched development on GitHub exactly one year ago (to the minute). Since then, AIMSICD and has become quite popular, both among privacy oriented users and curious security researchers. If you live in an area that may be directly affected by fake cell towers, the AIMSICD Project is definitely a project worth following closely. Moreover, you are invited to submit pull requests if you have a contribution to make! AIMSICD aims to provide you the maximum protection against fraud--for free and completely open source, which is an important factor for credibility in this field. So what are you waiting for? Help them develop their app and contribute to a better privacy-oriented future!

You can learn much more about this project and the security by all its means by visiting their GitHub repository website. Don't hesitate to contribute pull requests to make this app even more useful and help it reach its goals by following the Development Roadmap. Stay safe!