Apple iPhone is required to shut down 2G network due to too many loopholes: Android has already done it in advance

The GSM 2G network has been around for more than 30 years, and there are still many services that require 2G. However, the network has too many security vulnerabilities. Google has already supported the function of disabling 2G in the Android system. Now the EFF Electronic Frontier Foundation has also asked Apple to learn from Android and allow the iPhone to turn off the 2G network.

Google has added a feature switch in Android 12, which allows you to enable or disable the "Allow 2G" feature in the SIM card settings.

The EFF Foundation praised Google's approach and asked Apple to follow suit and add a function to the iPhone to shut down the 2G network, which is not currently supported by Apple phones.

They do this in the hope of improving the security of mobile users, because the 2G network has too many security vulnerabilities. We have introduced it before. The 2G network came out in 1991, more than 30 years ago. At that time, there was not much consideration for security, and the encryption technology was not very good. There were two main security risks:

The first is that the 2G network uses weak encryption between mobile phones and signal towers, which allows hackers to easily intercept users' telecommunications and text messages, and even hack into mobile phones without sending any data packets.

Secondly, there is no base station authentication technology in the 2G network, so fake base stations are prevalent. The spam text messages and harassing calls received by many people are likely made by fake base stations, resulting in a lot of fraud.

Starting from 4G networks, these vulnerabilities have been gradually fixed, but there are base station simulators that can downgrade to 2G networks and continue to use previous vulnerabilities, so now some mobile phone users may also encounter 2G security issues.