Executive Summary
The U.S. Secret Service (USSS) in late September announced the discovery of 300 SIM farms in the New York tristate area, which encompasses parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, including one located near the 80th UN General Assembly. The Service proclaimed, without evidence, that the suspicious establishments were a threat against the operability of New York City’s cellular network—a rare and unusual public statement by the USSS that grabbed the attention of international media outlets. Subsequently, empirical evidence and expert assessments have contradicted the Service’s claimed purpose of the suspicious devices.
That said, maligned actors and other malicious intent are likely behind the farms’ establishment, and we cannot rule out the possibility that attendees of the UN meeting were the intended targets for at least one of the farms. We assess that, without more aggressive law enforcement efforts to prevent the establishment of new sites and to locate and dismantle existing ones, SIM farms will likely continue presenting a real intelligence and crime threat to individuals and organisations globally.