The Hindu : New Delhi News : SIM card cloning a fast growing business

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 04, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

SIM card cloning a fast growing business

By Devesh K. Pandey

NEW DELHI, FEB. 3. SIM card cloning appears to have become a fast growing business not only in the Capital but also in other parts of the country where mobile phones are in use. Within a few days of having cracked one such racket, the South-West Delhi police were today contacted by their Shimla counterparts to know more about SIM card cloning technology as they too have come across a similar case.

It is learnt that the case reported in Shimla pertains to SIM cards issued by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which lodged a formal complaint regarding cheating worth over Rs. 2 crores by another gang. The Shimla police suspect that those involved in duping the telecom company had used cloned SIM cards to make the calls.

They have arrested some persons in the case and when they came to know that the South-West Delhi police had cracked a racket in cloning of GSM SIM cards, they sent a team here to learn more about the technology through which the SIM cards are cloned and misused.

Meanwhile, the mobile service provider on whose complaint the South-West Delhi police arrested eight persons on charges of cloning SIM cards with international roaming facility today informed the police that it did not have the expertise to detect the cloned SIM cards. It could detect the discrepancy only by putting a particular connection on the watch list. "As of now, there is no mechanism to keep such a surveillance on all the mobile connections," said a police officer, adding that by the time the discrepancy would be detected, there was a high chance that those using such SIM cards would do away with them to hide their identity and whereabouts.

With the unearthing of such a novel modus operandi, mobile phone operators are puzzled on how to counter this menace. The problem is that the equipment required to clone SIM cards are readily available in the market. Despite the fact that the SIM cards they issue cannot be tampered with, they cannot stop their cloning as the culprits use blank cards which are normally used for manufacturing smartcards by various companies and are thus available in the open market.

Secondly, it does not require much expertise to clone the SIM cards as the entire process is carried out automatically using SIM reader and a particular computer software that can be obtained from computer-ware markets here and also from countries like Singapore, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. Consequently, the police feel that it would be very difficult to curb SIM card cloning until a technique is developed to instantly identify the SIM cards whose copies have been made and genuine cardholders informed. It can probably be done by placing some kind of surveillance on IMEI numbers of mobile phones. Through this, they can identify the SIM card in which the IMEI number of the mobile phone is getting changed frequently. "This technique will be effective but not foolproof as IMEI numbers can also be tampered with," said a cyber crime expert.

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