Who is Syniverse, anyway?

One of the world’s largest SS7 hubs was hacked. What does that mean?

People outside of the telecom industry have probably never heard of Syniverse, even though they probably use the service every day. Many press reports are describing Syniverse as an “SMS-handling company”, but what they do is really much bigger than that, the telecom equivalent of the world’s largest internet exchange point. Syniverse connects mobile operator networks to each other, and they are probably the largest such “inter-operator carrier” in the world. When AT&T needs to connect to Vodafone, or Telefonica to Verizon, they are probably doing it through Syniverse. A significant share of the world’s telephone calls, text messages, and cellular data sessions are passing through Syniverse every day. So it is more than a little interesting when Syniverse quietly admit that some of their systems were compromised by some unknown party for several years.

From the Syniverse SEC report:

For example, in May 2021, Syniverse became aware of unauthorized access to its operational and information technology systems by an unknown individual or organization (the “May 2021 Incident”). Promptly upon Syniverse’s detection of the unauthorized access, Syniverse launched an internal investigation, notified law enforcement, commenced remedial actions…