The US Secret Service said Tuesday it had eliminated a network of electronic devices across New York’s tri-state area that was used to threaten U.S. government officials, pose an imminent threat to national security.
“This protection intelligence survey has discovered over 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites,” the Secret Service said.
The device was concentrated within a 35-mile radius (56 km) of the UN General Assembly World Conference in New York City. The investigation into the incident was launched by the Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Blocking Unit.
Apart from issuing anonymous phone threats, sophisticated devices can be weaponized to carry out a variety of attacks on communications infrastructure, including disabling mobile phone towers, triggering denial of service, and promoting encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises.
The Secret Service also said the early evidence refers to cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals known to federal law enforcement. They didn’t go into detail about who these actors were. The agency also did not identify the officials who were threatened, the nature of the threat, or the countries that could have been involved.
CNN and NBC News reported that the network anonymously informed the threat of assassination to senior US officials, and that investigation discovered an empty electronic safe house that was rented around the area, including Armonk in New York. Greenwich, Connecticut. Queens, New York. Crossing the rivers of New Jersey.
“The possibility of telecommunications disruption in our country brought about by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” said Sean Curran, US Secret Services director.
“The US Secret Service’s protection mission is about prevention, and this investigation will reveal to potential bad actors that any imminent threat to parents will be quickly investigated, tracked and dismantled.”
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