Hack At The Studio: Catch Up With Emmanuel Gadaix

SVC member emx has been speaking about security issues related to telecommunications systems for about 20 years. Most of his public talks about telco security have been dismissively ignored by network operators yet he continues his crusade to educate them about the growing threats faced by their critical infrastructures upon which our lives increasingly depend.

Emmanuel started working in the mobile telecommunications industry in the early 90′s while following an advanced late-night curriculum in in-band signalling. Distressed by the apparent death of phreaking due to the introduction of the SS7 out-of-band signalling, he embarked on a decade-long quest to return this early form of telephone hacking to its former glory. In 2001 he presented the first-ever public speech about GSM security at the Black Hat briefings in Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by a streams of other presentations on that topic at major security events across Europe and Asia. In 2002 co-founded TSTF with Philippe Langlois to conduct security research on telecommunications systems and assisting mobile operators in securing their infrastructure, a Sisyphean effort in the complex and ever-changing world of mobile telecom carriers.