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Comment by mdp2021 | Hacker News Reader

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mdp2021

> caught subscribing users to premium SMS services

If one thought of espionage...

> Also intercepts SMS confirmation messages and replies on behalf of the user

> All the remote servers that received this activity were located in China

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Espionage is highly unlikely since nobody important will buy cheapest of the cheap dumb phones. Most likely it's used for CC theft, spam, proxying, forcing unwanted paid subscriptions, and other scamming schemes. That DEXP is involved is especially interesting because it's a face brand for DNS, a large Russian retailer. While all these models are Chinese OEM phones with a label slapped on them and little to no modification otherwise, it's possible that DNS is involved.

I also want to mention that "Russian hacker groups don't do cybercrime at home, and the state lets them do it abroad" meme, which half of HN seems to sincerely believe, is extremely misguided, and just sounds bizarre to anyone who follows the topic. There is a continuum of loosely related Russian-speaking criminals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Baltic States (mostly Lithuanian criminals who traditionally work as the EU bridge for others), and it's always hard to tell who located where. Some of them have some ties with the Russian state (regardless of the country of origin), most don't. Domestic cybercrime is rampant in Russia, often involves big names (such as top 3 mobile operators in Russia) and the mere notion it's controlled in some way is ridiculous. The only issue is there's not much money to steal, so they turn to EU and US targets.

Actually, considering the low pay and the rules, prohibiting snartphones at many russian defence companies, cheap dumb phones may be a great target for espionage.

>and the rules, prohibiting snartphones at many russian defence companies

In such companies, you typically leave any electronic devices on you (including watches) at the gate, from clocking in to clocking out. Nobody would care if your phone is dumb, it's still breaking the rule.

Depends, some do indeed ban all electronic devices, others only ban smartphones and any devices with cameras. Probably after this incicident most of them will move towards the former policy.

According to the original article, DEXP has stopped selling these phones and is doing internal investigation.

The real criminal here is Russia's big three (I would say, excluding MTS but including a new hot contender Tele2) who repeatedly rob vulnerable and elderly people via "paid content" schemas which have zero usefulness outside of scam.

>Espionage is highly unlikely since nobody important will buy cheapest of the cheap dumb phones

I agree that this event is unlikely to be espionage, but someone important might buy a cheap dumb burner phone. I wouldn't put it past an intelligence agency to wholesale compromise cheap dumb phones for that reason.

> Domestic cybercrime is rampant in Russia

sure. It is different endeavor/specialization though. Stealing just several thousands CC from Sberbank leads to Sberbank security paying you visit at home late night with you completely voluntarily signing confession and a letter of apology well before the dawn.

>mostly Lithuanian criminals who traditionally work as the EU bridge for others

could you share any source for this?

>nobody important will buy cheapest of the cheap dumb phones

As a burner phone maybe?

DNS, and DEXP are by far not major "face brands"

They are a small chain from Vladivostok

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