Secret Service Busts ‘Imminent Threat’ That Could Cripple Cell Networks

The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a massive hidden network of electronic devices in the New York tri-state area that posed a threat to the country’s communications grid and potentially to the United Nations General Assembly meetings underway this week.

Officials announced Tuesday morning that the network, discovered across multiple abandoned apartment buildings, contained more than 300 SIM servers and roughly 100,000 SIM cards. A forensic examination of the devices is ongoing, but “early analysis indicates cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement,” according to the press release.

“These devices allowed anonymous, encrypted communications between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises, enabling criminal organizations to operate undetected,” Matt McCool, the head of the Secret Service New York Field Office, said in a video statement released Tuesday. “This network had the potential to disable cellphone towers and essentially shut down the cellular network in New York City.”

The equipment was located within 35 miles of the UN headquarters in Manhattan, where dozens of world leaders are meeting this week, raising concerns that the network could have been used to disrupt the high-profile gathering, according to the press release. President Donald Trump