By: TPS Staff
During the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, a network consisting of over 300 servers and 100,000 SIM cards was found and shut down by the secret service. The ,”SIM farm” was spread out over 5 different locations in abandoned apartments, with photos published by the secret service showing the scale of the operation. This stems from an investigation from earlier this spring, when multiple senior U.S. government officials received telecommunication-related threats, leading the Secret Service to dismantle the network.
While the investigation is currently ongoing, forensics has been able to uncover some important information, emphasizing that the scale, timing, and location of the network created a potentially dangerous situation. According to the Secret Service, the network had the ability to “disable cell phone towers, enable denial of service attacks, and facilitate anonymous encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises.”
The network was located within 35 miles of the UN headquarters, the sit of the United Nations General Assembly, although the motive remains unknown. Forensics has indicated that communications over the network were between foreign governments and known criminal enterprises and organizations known to law enforcement. The new U.S. Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit is heading the investigation with the assistance of other local, state, and federal agencies.
