Company That Routes Billions of SMS for U.S Carriers Hacked

It was being announced recently that Syniverse, which serves carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone, China Mobile, and numerous other companies all over the world got hacked.

The experts came to know that the hackers have hijacked its systems for years, and gaining access to data from over 200 Syniverse clients.

The Hack Went Back as Far as 2016

The threat actors have been gaining different databases of the system for a long time. However, the login data that they have collected was eventually allowing access to the whole system from its Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) environment.

There were nearly 235 customers who were being compromised in this attack. During the investigation, Syniverse pronounced that they did not witness any proper proof of intention to agitate its proceedings.

Syniverse’s security violation got acknowledged as the company was planning to go public by a merger along with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Risk Factors

Syniverse is quite a famous server, but due to this kind of attack, it was facing a lot of trust as well as customers. And it’s also true that System failures, delay many functions and lead to many other problems, that are being faced by the customers.

So, that’s why here we have mentioned some of the risk factors that are related to Syniverse’s Business. The progress of Syniverse generally depends on its capacity to implement good and strong services to its customers. 

If Syniverse’s operations face any attack, then its progress gets degraded by the damage of:-

• Its computer software or hardware.
• Its networks, its customers’ networks, or its suppliers’ networks.
• Its connections and outsourced service settlements with third parties.

Apart from this Syniverse’s systems as well as the operations that are conducted by them are vulnerable to destruction or interruption from such as:-

• Power loss, transmission cable cuts, and other telecommunications and utility failures.
• Hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters.
• A terrorist attack in the United States or in another country in which Syniverse operates.
• Interruption of service arising from facility migrations. 
• Computer viruses, software defects, and the impacts of malware and hackers.
• Loss or misuse of proprietary information or customer data that compromises security, confidentiality, or integrity.
• Errors by Syniverse’s employees or third-party service providers.

Service Marks, Trademarks & Trade Names

Syniverse is quite famous and it holds many service marks, trademarks as well as trade names, so, from its logo design to its tagline, “The World’s Most Connected Company, We Make Mobile Work and We Make Mobile Work Better,” are considered important to marketing activities and is also being carried by several businesses.

The trademarks, service marks, and trade names related in the proxy statement that does not have any the ® and ™ symbols. Apart from this the proxy statement also includes trademarks, service marks, and trade names of other companies which are the resources of their individual holders. 

This attack has made a lot of influence in the attack, as the company processes more than 740 billion text messages annually. Since Syniverse systems have direct access to phone call records and text messages, so, for the hackers Syniverse is one of the most lucrative targets.

By hacking Syniverse the threat actors could easily gain indirect access to a large range of internet accounts like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and all kinds of other accounts that are protected with SMS 2-factor authentication.

Not only this but it also has direct connections with more than 300 mobile operators all over the world. After examining the whole matter, the experts came to know that the larges mobile operators like Telefonica and America Movil, are also got affected by this attack.

However, in the SEC filing, Syniverse has claimed that they have already fixed bugs by resetting and deactivating the credentials of all EDT customers.

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