topic Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call in Discussions & Feedback

O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

pgn — Sun, 18 May 2025 20:42:58 GMT

This, whilst incredibly technical, was very interesting...

"Any O2 customer can be trivially located by an attacker with even a basic understanding of mobile networking."

"...every O2 device that is making a phone call on IMS (4G Calling / WiFi Calling) is receiving information that can be used to trivially geolocate the recipient of the call."

https://mastdatabase.co.uk/blog/2025/05/o2-expose-customer-location-call-4g/

In this instance, PAYG is more secure, as O2 does not provision 4G Calling/WiFi Calling to their customers on Pay As You Go. I do wonder if those dependent on O2's network but that do offer PAYG clients 4G Calling (like giffgaff?) are equally porous in this regard...?

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

Oxonian — Mon, 19 May 2025 17:11:42 GMT

Very informative @pgn. There is more about this here :-

O2 UK Fixes VoLTE Flaw that Exposed User Mobile Location Data - ISPreview UK

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/05/o2-uk-fixes-volte-flaw-that-exposed-user-mobile-location-data.html

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

Enlli — Mon, 19 May 2025 18:05:37 GMT

Saw the article and read with interest. How long has this has been known about and is it another example of O2 taking an inordinate length of time to fix?

I rarely make or receive important calls over O2 as I've never been prepared to risk losing my long term number transferring it.

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

Cleoriff — Mon, 19 May 2025 18:11:12 GMT

Interesting and worrying @pgn 😖

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

pgn — Mon, 19 May 2025 18:48:13 GMT

Hmm. News released to ISPreview today, eh? Pretty quick turnaround from the date of the earlier post, @Oxonian @ I wonder what else they broke in their haste to patch the leak...🤔

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

jonsie — Mon, 19 May 2025 19:34:07 GMT

NOTE: O2 first introduced their implementation of IMS / 4G Calling all the way back in 2017.

....so 7-8 years for a fix?

Seems standard for O2!

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

pgn — Mon, 19 May 2025 19:41:30 GMT

Ah yes, @jonsie - I meant the time between the two articles - had the first not been published, alongside author's exhortations to Lutz Schüler CEO of VMO2, the press release to ISPreview would probably still be forthcoming!

"Update (19th May 2025, 08:14 BST)

O2 reached out to me via email to confirm that this issue has been resolved. I have validated this information myself, and can confirm that the vulnerability does appear to be resolved."

Or someone left the debug-flag set on the production code on O2's side, so a quick fix 🙃

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

Oxonian — Tue, 20 May 2025 19:02:52 GMT

@jonsie wrote:
NOTE: O2 first introduced their implementation of IMS / 4G Calling all the way back in 2017.

....so 7-8 years for a fix?
Seems standard for O2!

There's hope for the Forum popup yet ! 👍

Re: O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

Pipstop78 — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 21:40:53 GMT

Glad I don't have anyone ringing that's important