The Secret Service said Tuesday it dismantled a network of hundreds of servers capable of interrupting telecommunications across the tristate area during the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Agents found more than 300 servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites within 35 miles of the U.N.’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, according to a release from the agency. This network could have been used to knock cellphone towers offline, enable encrypted communications among bad actors and carry out anonymous digital attacks that overwhelm services, officials said.
The Secret Service said the investigation is ongoing, but it found preliminary signs of “cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals known to federal law enforcement.” The agency did not specify which entities, how many sites were involved or how it discovered them.
Authorities said this “represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations,” including for senior U.S. officials.
“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in a statement.
Roughly 150 heads of government are currently gathering at the 80th U.N. General Assembly to discuss a variety of global topics. President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak there Tuesday, with security at high levels into next week.
The Secret Service said it will work alongside the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies to investigate the server network.
