EE forms part of BT Group, the largest digital communications company in UK, and boasts of serving more than 31 million connections across its mobile, fixed and wholesale networks. But it was a flaw in EE’s 4G Mini WiFi modem that caught the eye of ZeroDayLab Security Consultants, and that when installed weakened the customers defenses. As a result of the vulnerability cyber criminals would be able to bypass access permissions and gain full administrative/system rights by escalating privileges, once they have gained access to the EE customer’s Laptop or PC. This means the cyber criminal is able to perform any number of malicious actions, such as planting Malware, Rootkits, Log key strokes or stealing personal information.
 
EE customers have been going about their business up and down the country, connecting to the web while on the move oblivious to the potential danger that their latest gadget has been exposing them to. ZeroDayLab’s Chief Technical Officer Paul Brereton said “by installing the EE modem, users have been unwittingly significantly weakening the security of their operating environment (Windows), allowing a local attacker, malicious application or targeted malware to gain full unrestricted administrative access to the operating environment and bypassing the protections in place.”
 
The vulnerability discovered by ZeroDayLab is exploitable with relatively little effort from a potential cyber criminal – the level of sophistication and effort required to execute this attack is minimal, making this a significant vulnerability.