Two Iowa State professors are investigating security threats in wireless communication technologies such as cellular phones and wireless local access networks (LANs).

Steve Russell and Julie Dickerson, professors of electrical and computer engineering, have received funding for the project as part of a two-year, $80,000 corporate grant from Rockwell International.

Wireless technologies are used in cellular communications, LANs and wireless telephones. Russell said they have identified a weakness in a particular cellular standard by which cell phone conversations can be intercepted.

“We’ve found a vulnerability in cell phone systems that would allow interceptions from a counterfeit base station,” he said.

Russell compared intercepting cell phone conversations to computer hacking.

“Like computer hackers, we’ve found a hole that needs to be plugged. Only in this case, it’s not in a computer system,” he said.

Russell and Dickerson said they examine the electronic standards of a particular technology and determine its weaknesses.

“We first of all find a way to break into a cell phone,” Russell said. “Then we find a way to fix it.”

Russell said cellular phone services often advertise the new digital cellular technology as secure; however, even digital technology can be intercepted.

Russell and Dickerson said they are now focusing on the weaknesses of digital cellular technology. The pair wants to develop preventative measures against interceptions of wireless communications.

“We’ve come up with some ideas, but we keep finding holes in them and ways to get around them,” Dickerson said in a Saturday article in The Tribune. “This is a very interesting and exciting project to work on.”

Russell said he expects this type of research to become significant in the near future.

As the people who want to intercept wireless information develop their technology further and discover the weaknesses in the current technology, people are going to need to have secure ways of communicating, he said.

For now, “Don’t say anything on your cell phone that you don’t want your grandmother to hear,” Russell warned.