European criminal gangs are paying top euro to get old Nokia 1100 mobile phones according to a report from research firm Ultrascan . A lot of 1100s were made, but the gangs, which specialize in card and on-line banking fraud, are only interested in the ones made in Germany. They claim one recently sold for 25,000 euro.





What's with the outrageous premium? Ultrascan says that the gangs "...were able to hack this model to insert any mobile phone number and use it for criminal purposes, especially to intercept the mobile (sms) TAN code during on-line banking fraud."

It's common, according to F-Secure's blog on this matter, for European banks to require a confirmation code in order to complete online banking transactions. They used to do this by giving customers a list of numbers on paper to use sequentially, but recently banks have moved to using SMS to deliver a one-time code to the customer on their mobile device.

This is the code that Ultrascan says the German Nokia 1100s can intercept. Presumably they are being used to clone other phones without the SIM card, but exactly what is happening is not at all clear. F-Secure adds that they've searched the hacker forums and other such places for verification and further data and found nothing. But if the story is true it's a serious problem.

Originally posted on the PCMag.com security blog, Security Watch.