Would you believe you can track, and even jam law enforcement radio communications using a pretty pink pager? It turns out the digital radios using the APCO-25 protocol can be jammed using the IM-ME hardware. We’ve seen this ‘toy’ so many times… yet it keeps on surprising us. Or rather, [Travis Goodspeed’s] ability to do amazing stuff with the hardware is what makes us perk up.

Details about this were presented in a paper at the USENIX conference a few weeks ago. Join us after the break where we’ve embedded the thirty-minute talk. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there. The IM-ME can be used to decode the metadata that starts each radio communication. That means you can track who is talking to whom. But for us the most interesting part was starting at about 15:30 when the presenter, [Matt Blaze], talked about directed jamming that can be used to alter law enforcement behavior. A jammer can be set to only jam encrypted communications. This may prompt an officer to switch off encryption, allowing the attackers to listen in on everything being said to or from that radio.

Continue reading “Project 25 Digital Radios (law Enforcement Grade) Vulnerable To The IM-ME” →