CAPEC-609
Cellular Traffic Intercept
Cellular traffic for voice and data from mobile devices and retransmission devices can be intercepted via numerous methods. Malicious actors can deploy their own cellular tower equipment and intercept cellular traffic surreptitiously. Additionally, government agencies of adversaries and malicious actors can intercept cellular traffic via the telecommunications backbone over which mobile traffic is transmitted.
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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-609: Cellular Traffic Intercept: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/609.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/609?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.
Prerequisites
None
Skills required
- Medium skill
Adversaries can purchase hardware and software solutions, or create their own solutions, to capture/intercept cellular radio traffic. The cost of a basic Base Transceiver Station (BTS) to broadcast to local mobile cellular radios in mobile devices has dropped to very affordable costs. The ability of commercial cellular providers to monitor for "rogue" BTS stations is poor in many areas and it is assumed that "rogue" BTS stations exist in urban areas.
Consequences
| Impact | Affects | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Read Data | Confidentiality | Capture all cellular and RF traffic from mobile and retransmission devices. Move bulk traffic capture to storage area for cryptanalysis of encrypted traffic, and telemetry analysis of non-encrypted data. (packet headers, cellular power data, signal strength, etc.) |
Mitigations
Encryption of all data packets emanating from the smartphone to a retransmission device via two encrypted tunnels with Suite B cryptography, all the way to the VPN gateway at the datacenter.
Weaknesses it exploits
- CWE-311 Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
Recent CVEs with these weaknesses
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- 6.3CVE-2026-43854
A vulnerability could allow an attacker with access to an encrypted project file to retrieve administrator credentials for EdgeLink-enabled devices.
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AIOHTTP is an asynchronous HTTP client/server framework for asyncio and Python. Prior to 3.14.4, the Secure attribute for a shared cookie is not enforced. An attacker can consequently cause a shared cookie marked Secure to be sent with an …
- 6.2CVE-2026-86375
Dell Application Installer, versions prior to 26.09.0.1, contain a Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data vulnerability. An unauthenticated attacker with local access could potentially exploit this vulnerability, leading to Unauthorized acce…
The newest records naming one of them. Each weakness's page lists them all.
Related attack patterns
- Part of
- CAPEC-157 Sniffing Attacks
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