Security News > 2021 > October > Largest mobile SMS routing firm discloses five-year-long breach
Syniverse, a service provider for most telecommunications companies, disclosed that hackers had access to its databases over the past five years and compromised login credentials belonging to hundreds of customers.
Self-described as "The world's most connected company," Syniverse provides text messaging routing services to over 300 mobile operators, among them Vodafone, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, America Movil, Telefonica, and China Mobile.
Syniverse is so big that it brags about having as its customers "Nearly every mobile communications provider, the largest global banks, the world's biggest tech companies."
For five years, hackers maintained access to Syniverse internal databases and compromised the login data for the Electronic Data Transfer environment belonging to about 235 customers.
From its role as an intermediary between mobile carriers, it is easy to infer the type of data the hackers could access by breaching Syniverse: at least details about the source, destination, timestamps, general location, and possibly the content of the text messages.
Given the part Syniverse plays in mobile communication around the world and the trove of sensitive information it needs to protect, the details about the breach and the goal of the intruder are likely to receive more scrutiny from national-level regulatory bodies.