The US Secret Service has shut down a massive “SIM farm” close to where a UN summit is being held in New York.

While world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly – marking its 80th anniversary – a vast, hidden digital network was close by, capable of causing absolute chaos.

This wasn’t a small-time operation, either. Investigators found a web of over 300 computer servers linked to 100,000 SIM cards primed to cause all sorts of trouble.

This setup was far more dangerous than just a tool for sending spam texts or making anonymous calls, even though this capability was being used to threaten senior US officials. The real fear was its potential to be weaponised, whether during or after the UN summit in New York.

The US Secret Service says the SIM farm had the power to:

• Shut down mobile phone towers, potentially crippling communications for everyone from first responders to ordinary citizens. Fatalities during the recent Optus outage in Australia show just how dangerous this can be.

• Launch denial-of-service attacks, flooding essential online services and websites with junk traffic until they crash.

• Create secret, untraceable communication channels for criminals or even hostile governments to plot without being seen.

Most unsettling of all, a first look at the seized equipment has already revealed digital chatter between known nation-state actors and individuals already on law enforcement’s watchlist. This suggests the network may have been a tool for foreign espionage or disruption on American soil.

With the UN summit in full swing in New York, officials weren’t taking any chances. The SIM farm was located just 35 miles from the global summit, and the potential for it to be used to disrupt the event was just too high. A new team within the Secret Service, the Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, was sent in to pull the plug.

“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” said US Secret Service Director Sean Curran.

“The US 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.”

The operation to dismantle the SIM farm was a team effort, with help from Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the NYPD, among others. For now, New Yorkers can breathe a little easier, but the investigation into who was behind this digital ghost network, and what they were planning – including any intention to disrupt the UN summit – is just beginning.

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