Software implants (“RATs” or “rootkits”) or baseband access (“backdoors”).
The baseband is an embedded computer inside the phone that controls the device’s sensors and radios. It runs off of its own OS and is separate from the consumer-facing OS. The phone’s OS then talks to this embedded system.
All phones do this, even the iPhone whose baseband OS was some variant of L4 Linux, IIRC.
Various Intelligence Community people and documents have made statements that they can remotely activate the baseband to interact with a target device.
The baseband is an embedded computer inside the phone that controls the device’s sensors and radios. It runs off of its own OS and is separate from the consumer-facing OS. The phone’s OS then talks to this embedded system.
All phones do this, even the iPhone whose baseband OS was some variant of L4 Linux, IIRC.
Various Intelligence Community people and documents have made statements that they can remotely activate the baseband to interact with a target device.