Cellphone chip maker probing US, UK spying

A Dutch cellphone chip giant says it is investigating reports that spies from the U.S. and United Kingdom were able to crack into their systems and steal security keys to spy on people’s phones.

Gemalto said in a statement on Friday that it had “no prior knowledge” of the theft before the release of Edward Snowden’s leaked documents in The Intercept this week but is determined to find out what happened.

{mosads}“We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques,” the company said in a statement.

“There have been many reported state-sponsored attacks as of late, that all have gained attention both in the media and amongst businesses,” it added, which “truly emphasizes how serious cybersecurity is in this day and age.”

On Thursday, The Intercept published documents showing that, in 2010, officials at the National Security Agency and the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) secretly broke into Gemalto’s network in order to steal encryption keys to some of the roughly 2 billion SIM cards that the company works on each year. Those keys would allow spies in either country to easily bypass technology that prevent people from snooping on each other’s phone calls and data messages.

Gemalto produces chips for many of the biggest names in the wireless industry, including Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and hundreds of other providers around the world.

In its statement on Friday, Gemalto noted that it was targeted as part of agencies’ casting of “the widest net possible,” in order “to monitor mobile communications without mobile network operators’ and users’ consent.”

Cybersecurity experts have previously lobbed criticism at the NSA for reports that it routinely tries to weaken or bypass strong security systems, which opponents say makes everyone less safe.

News of the incident is likely to ignite new transatlantic tensions over the spying and cause alarm in tech circles. Shares of Gemalto took a sharp dive in the hours after the report on Thursday.