U.S. Carriers Fix SMS Routing Vulnerability That Let Hackers Hijack Texts
Major carriers in the U.S. like Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have made a change to how SMS messages are routed to put a stop to a security vulnerability that allowed hackers to reroute texts, reports Motherboard.
Carriers introduced the change after a Motherboard investigation last week revealed how easy it is for hackers to reroute text messages and use the stolen information to break into social media accounts. The site paid a hacker $16 to reroute texts using the tools of a company called Sakari, which helps businesses with mass marketing.
Sakari offered a text rerouting tool from a company called Bandwidth, which was supplied by another company called NetNumber, resulting in a confusing network of companies contributing to a vulnerability that left SMS texts open to hackers (Motherboard has more information on the process in its original article). The hacker hired by Motherboard was able to access Sakari's tools without any authentication or consent from the rerouting target, successfully getting texts from Motherboard's test phone.
Sakari is meant to allow businesses to import their own phone number for sending mass texts, which means a business is able to add a phone number to send and receive texts through the Sakari platform. Hackers could abuse this tool by importing a phone number of a victim to get access to the person's text messages.
Aerialink, a communications company that helps route text messages, said today said that wireless carriers are no longer supporting SMS or MMS text enabling on wireless numbers, something that "affects all SMS providers in the mobile ecosystem." This will prevent the hack demonstrated by Motherboard last week from working.
It is not clear if this text rerouting method was widely used by hackers, but it was easier to pull off than other smartphone hacking methods like SIM swapping. A Security Research Labs researcher said that he had not seen it before, while another researcher said it was "absolutely" in use.
Popular Stories
Apple is planning to debut a high-end secondary version of AirPods Pro 3 this year, sitting in the lineup alongside the current model, reports suggest.
Back in September 2025, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is planning to introduce a successor to the AirPods Pro 3 in 2026. This would be somewhat unusual since Apple normally waits around three years to make major...
Over the last few months, rumors around the iPhone 18 Pro's front-panel design have been conflicted, with some supply-chain leaks pointing to under-display Face ID, reports suggesting a top-left hole-punch camera, and debate over whether the familiar Dynamic Island will shrink, shift, or disappear entirely.
Today, Weibo-based leaker Instant Digital shared new details that appear to clarify the ...
iOS 27 is still many months away, but there are already plenty of rumors about new features that will be included in the software update.
The first beta of iOS 27 will be released during WWDC 2026 in June, and the update should be released to all users with a compatible iPhone in September.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that iOS 27 will be similar to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, in the sense...
MacBook Pro availability is tightening on Apple's online store, with select configurations facing up to a two-month delivery timeframe in the United States.
A few 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro configurations with an M4 Pro chip are not facing any shipping delay, but estimated delivery dates for many configurations with an M4 Max chip range from February 6 to February 24 or even later. At...
Apple's App Store, iTunes Store, and Apple TV service are experiencing an outage at the current time, according to Apple's System Status page.
Apple says that some users may be experiencing issues with the App Store and iTunes Store. Apple also says some users may be seeing intermittent issues with Apple TV. The Apple TV Channels feature is down too, and users may be unable to access some...
