EFF praised Android for its 2G network shutdown switch

DoNews, January 18 (Liu Wenxuan) Google added a 2G network shutdown switch for Android 12, which was praised by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

U.S. carriers have shut down 2G network services for several years and are currently working on shutting down 3G networks, but many phones currently on sale will try to automatically connect to any 2G signal nearby. Because 2G networks are old and their security protection capabilities are outdated, they are now easily cracked.

Since 2020, EFF has been fighting against outdated, insecure 2G cellular standards, and Android is the first mobile operating system to take the organization's recommendations and let users disable 2G altogether.

Although the ability to legally use 2G networks no longer exists in some countries, the standard can still be used as an attack vector by pseudo base stations to intercept phone calls and text messages, which the EFF says attackers do not need to transmit data packets to passively perform these operations.