More mobile operators in West Africa are targets of SS7 attacks than any other African Region, AdaptiveMobile reveals

AdaptiveMobile finds Location Tracking and Information Harvesting among top attack types

CAPE TOWN, South Africa--()--AdaptiveMobile, the world leader in mobile network security, today announced at AfricaCom 2016 new research findings that show mobile operators in West Africa are the highest target for SS7 attacks in the continent. The research, conducted by AdaptiveMobile’s Threat Intelligence Unit, analyses packets sent over a 4-month period and finds that 39% of all African operators attacked via SS7 were in West Africa.

Heightened awareness of vulnerabilities in the signalling protocols has driven an increase in demand for protection against a range of attacks, including location tracking and call interception. Previous analysis from AdaptiveMobile showed a number of malicious, sophisticated platforms operating throughout the continent. New research shows that 65% of all operators in this analysis were affected by location tracking attacks and 100% of operators were affected by subscriber harvesting attacks.

“Through our analysis of SS7 packets sent worldwide, we can see a regional breakdown of where attackers are targeting,” said Cathal Mc Daid, chief intelligence officer at AdaptiveMobile. “While West African operators are heavily targeted, North and East African operators are also affected with 42% of all operators attacked in this analysis located in these two regions. Unauthorised access to the SS7 network can cause significant financial and reputational damage to the operator community and their subscribers. This is a challenge African operators are working to combat so they can remain the trusted provider to their customers.”

AdaptiveMobile’s Signalling Protection secures the SS7 and LTE/Diameter networks using a unique combination of a carrier-grade signalling firewall, advanced analytics and the unique intelligence from working with the nine of the top 10 operator groups to protect 1/5th of the world’s mobile subscribers. To learn more about the award-winning Signalling Protection, meet with AdaptiveMobile at AfricaCom from November 15th – 17th in Cape Town, South Africa, by emailing sales@adaptivemobile.com

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About AdaptiveMobile

AdaptiveMobile is the world leader in mobile network security protecting over 1.5 billion subscribers worldwide and the only mobile security company offering products designed to protect all services on both fixed and mobile networks through in-network and cloud solutions. With deep expertise and a unique focus on network-to-handset security, AdaptiveMobile’s award winning security solutions provide its customers with advanced threat detection and actionable intelligence, combined with the most comprehensive security products on the market today.

AdaptiveMobile was founded in 2004 and boasts some of the world’s largest mobile operators as customers and the leading security and telecom equipment vendors as partners. The Company is headquartered in Dublin with offices in North America, Europe, South Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Contacts

Press:
AxiCom (UK)
Dan Beattie +44 (0)20 8392 4050
adaptivemobile@axicom.com
or
ACSCom PR (USA)
Anne Coyle +1 857 222 6363
adaptivemobile@acscompr.com

Release Summary

At AfricaCom 2016, AdaptiveMobile announced new research findings that show mobile operators in West Africa are the highest target for SS7 attacks in Africa.

Contacts

Press:
AxiCom (UK)
Dan Beattie +44 (0)20 8392 4050
adaptivemobile@axicom.com
or
ACSCom PR (USA)
Anne Coyle +1 857 222 6363
adaptivemobile@acscompr.com