Researchers are rather stoked to show off their skills and technical know-how in breaking the encryption which was actually put in place to protect information sent over the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). GPRS is the standard which is commonly used to send data to and from mobile devices, as well as from other devices including smart meters. The potential fallout from such a breach makes it possible to listen in on data communications such as e-mail, instant messages, and Web browsing on smart phones, not to mention updates from automated industrial systems.
The announcement will be made at the Chaos Communication Camp, which is a hacker event that takes place near Berlin, Germany. GPRS is a far older technology which supplements GSM whenever there are not faster 3G connections available in the vicinity.
While security researchers did not take a look at the GPRS standard in the past, they might soon have to shift more attention to it since there is a growing list of devices which use GPRS, hence a growing security risk is happening as each day passes by. Hopefully they get it sorted out for everyone’s sake, as we’d hate to have another high profile hack happen down the road.