The U.S. Secret Service on Tuesday said it took down a network of electronic devices located across the New York tri-state area that were used to threaten U.S. government officials and posed an imminent threat to national security.
“This protective intelligence investigation led to the discovery of more than 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites,” the Secret Service said.
The devices were concentrated within a 35-mile (56 km) radius of the global meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. An investigation into the incident has been launched by the Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit.
Aside from issuing anonymous telephonic threats, the sophisticated devices could be weaponized to conduct various attacks on the telecommunications infrastructure, including disabling cell phone towers, triggering a denial-of-service, and facilitating encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises.
The Secret Service also said early evidence points to cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement. It did not elaborate on who these actors are. The agency also did not identify the officials who were threatened, the nature of the threat, or the nations that may have been involved.
CNN and NBC News reported that the network anonymously conveyed assassination threats against senior U.S. officials and that the probe uncovered empty electronic safehouses rented around the area, including Armonk, New York; Greenwich, Connecticut; Queens, New York; and across the river in New Jersey.
“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” said U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
“The U.S. Secret Service’s protective mission is all about prevention, and this investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down, and dismantled.”
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