Citizen Lab details two spying campaigns that abuse weaknesses in the SS7 and Diameter protocols across 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G networks to track people's locations
Security researchers have uncovered two separate spying campaigns that are abusing well-known weaknesses in the global telecoms infrastructure to track people's locations.
Context & Ripple Effects
This finding extends a long-running record of mobile-network signaling weaknesses: related coverage has documented SS7 risks, roaming-protocol geolocation, and 4G/5G attacks capable of tracking devices or disrupting service.
The reporting also sits alongside prior Citizen Lab work on commercial telecom snooping tools and targeted spyware, linking infrastructure-level location surveillance to a broader market for monitoring individuals.
First-order effects
- People targeted by the two campaigns can be located through signaling-network weaknesses that span legacy and newer mobile generations, rather than through a flaw confined to a single handset or app.
- Mobile operators and their roaming/interconnection partners face renewed pressure to identify and restrict signaling access that can be abused for location queries.
Second-order effects
- Because SS7 and Diameter operate across operator relationships, remediation depends on counterparties and roaming pathways as well as the directly affected carrier; uneven controls can leave cross-network exposure intact.
- The campaigns reinforce the utility of telecom-layer surveillance alongside device spyware and SIM-based techniques, giving surveillance operators multiple routes to pursue a target's location.
Third-order effects
- If recurring findings continue, the shift to newer radio generations will not by itself retire location-surveillance risk: security will increasingly hinge on governance of inter-operator signaling and access to core-network interfaces.
- The pattern strengthens the case for treating telecom surveillance as an ecosystem-defense problem, where accountability extends beyond endpoint security to carriers, vendors, and international interconnection rules.
The trend: Persistent weaknesses in telecom signaling are making core-network access and roaming governance a durable front in the contest over targeted digital surveillance.