Is 4G putting your mobile at risk of hacking? Super-fast networks are not as secure as older, slower systems, claims expert
Almost every phone launched at this week's Mobile World Congress was sold on the promise of having super-fast speeds thanks to built-in LTE technology.
LTE, also known as 4G, officially launched in the UK last year, but it’s been growing in popularity globally for the past five years.
The technology covers a wider range of frequencies and has the potential to be up to 100 hundred times faster than slower 2G and 3G networks, but a software and security expert has told the MailOnline this increased speed comes at a price - security.
Both 2G and 3G networks were primarily designed for feature phones; for voice calls and texts, rather than data.
However, 4G was designed especially for sending and receiving data, making it more equipped for the job.
Leonid Burakovsky, senior director of strategic solutions at F5 told the MailOnline that while this makes it faster, the methods taken to achieve these speeds also make it more vulnerable.
'What the industry has done with 4G/LTE is taken a self-contained telephone network, secured primarily by virtue of being separate from the internet, and then bolted-on internet capabilities which were never designed to prevent eavesdropping,' said Burakovsky.
Put simply, 3G networks use a protocol called SS7 to send signals, this protocol is notoriously difficult to penetrate.
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