Mitto AG Managing OTPs for Google, Twitter, and WhatsApp Involved in Spying: Report
Mitto AG Managing OTPs for Google
The Swiss company Mitto AG that helped tech giants like Google, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Telegram with OTP services, is now in the middle of the global spy business. As per a report by a London-based non-profit organization, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), its co-founder and COO Ilja Gorelik provided services to surveillance companies that included "selling access to Mitto's networks to secretly locate people via their mobile phones." In addition, company employees and whistleblowers revealed that these Mittos' own networks were also used for surveillance work. The report said that the surveillance companies involved in the Mitto deal were hired to work with government agencies. However, it did not reveal their identities.
Mitto AG, based in Zug, Switzerland, is a private company with partnerships with more than 100 telecommunications operators worldwide. The TBIJ report suggests that the Swiss company used mobile phone networks to locate people and possibly intercept messages using the SS7 protocol. Telecommunications networks worldwide use the SS7 infrastructure to communicate, while calls and text messages are routed from one network to another. The report also cited at least one incident in which a US State Department official was attacked with a burst of signals using Mitto's network to locate the device's location. The information obtained from the Mitto AG network, once mixed with other modern surveillance technologies available on the market, could greatly facilitate the interception of devices.
The company has expressed shock and distanced itself from the covert surveillance business run by its co-founder.
Tech companies like Google, Twitter, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Telegram use SMS-based services for user verification, password recovery, and security checks. However, hosting infrastructure for a global user base is costly for technology companies, and aggregators like Mitto AG provide the solution at a much lower cost.