Ericsson fined over Olympic phone tap scandal
Don't tap the PM's phone...
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery
Ericsson has been hit with a €7.36m ($10m) fine for its role in tapping mobile phones belonging to the Greek prime minister and members of his Cabinet.
The Greek privacy watchdog levied the fine for Ericsson's part in tapping phones belonging to 100 senior government figures in the run up to the 2004 Athens Olympics. Calls to these mobiles were diverted to 14 shadow pay-as-you-go phones and probably recorded.
The Hellenic Authority for the Information and Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) said the fine was set based on Ericsson's turnover in Greece.
Vodafone was previously fined over €76m ($100m) for its role in the scandal but protested its innocence. The operator was blamed for allowing hackers to gain control of a piece of Ericsson surveillance software. Vodafone's Greek head of network design supposedly killed himself two days after the phone tapping was publicly revealed.
The problem came to light after Vodafone began investigating problems with delivering text messages.
The case sparked speculation that foreign intelligence services were involved.
Ericsson told Reuters that it disputed the decision and would appeal it in the Greek courts.
COMMENTS
Internal telecoms network
How did these 'hackers' gain access to the internal telecoms network??
Most of the network elements on this network DO NOT have IP interfaces, that being, the majority of spackers out there wouldn't know what the operating system is (highly bespoke OS, or Solaris depending on how much Vodaponie paid Ericsson), what the interfaces are or how to access them - certainly not from an IP network.
SS7 networks are the usual core network make up so I fail to see how hackers were able to access this network given these networks are all closed networks.
Corporate espionage??
...and the details...
Here are the details of the whole affair:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/5280
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Data control in the cloud
