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TIME Tech Security SIM Card Company Says the NSA Probably Hacked It David GouldGetty Images But it denies the NSA got access to billions of people's mobile communications

One of the worlds largest manufacturers of SIM cards has acknowledged evidence of security agency attacks on the companys internal networks, but its denying that American and British intelligence agents were able to get access to billions of mobile phone users secure data.

Gemalto, a French-Dutch supplier of SIM cards, found reasonable grounds of an attack by U.S. National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) following an internal investigation into a series of security incidents. The audits came after online publication The Intercept reported on what it said was a joint British-American operation to covertly hack Gemaltos stash of SIM encryption keys, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

SIM cards are small encrypted devices inside cell phones that carry users unique identifier codes on a network. Breaking their encryption could allow intelligence agencies or hackers easier access to targets mobile communication.

In particular, Gemalto cited two sophisticated intrusions in 2010 and 2011, one of which involved sending malware-infected attachments from faked company email addresses. Gemalto acknowledged that the breaches may have enabled a third party such as the NSA to spy on internal communications from company employees, but denied the breach led to a massive loss of encryption keys. The Intercept previously reported that the NSA and GCHQ stole encryption codes as Gemalto sent them to device makers like Chinas Huawei.

The attacks against Gemalto only breached its office networks and could not have resulted in a massive theft of SIM encryption keys, read a statement from the company.

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SIM Card Company Says the NSA Probably Hacked It

Hypocrite Marco Rubio Supports Funding More NSA Spying
David Knight takes the studio for Alex Jones and breaks down how Marco Rubio has betrayed the American people. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Marco-Rubio-P...

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Hypocrite Marco Rubio Supports Funding More NSA Spying - Video

"I would say that it has had a material impact in our ability to generate insights as to what counterterrorism, what terrorist groups around the world are doing," Adm. Michael Rogers told a group gathered in Washington for a cybersecurity summit hosted by the New America think tank.

READ: Jeb Bush defends NSA dragnet

"Do you have new blind spots that you didn't have prior to the revelation," moderator and CNN National Security correspondent Jim Sciutto asked.

"Have I lost capability that we had prior to the revelations? Yes," Rogers responded. "Anyone who thinks this has not had an impact I would say doesn't know what they're talking about."

Snowden himself remains free in Russia. A film about him won an Academy Award on Sunday evening.

Rogers says he knew U.S. infrastructure would likely come under cyber-attack on his watch, but the target of Sony Pictures was a surprise.

"I fully expected, sadly in some ways, that in my time as the commander of United States Cyber Command the Department of Defense would be tasked with attempting to defend the nation against those kind of attacks," he said. "I didn't realize that it would be against a motion picture company, to be honest."

North Korea is widely believed to be behind the hack in response to Sony's production of the film "The Interview," which depicts a comedic plot to kill leader Kim Jong-un

Rogers declined to respond to a question if the United States was behind a retaliatory online attack that took down North Korea's Internet access.

When asked which nations had the ability to strike U.S. cyber interests Rogers declined to provide assessments of most countries.

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NSA: Snowden leaks hurt ability to track terrorists - CNN.com

"I would say that it has had a material impact in our ability to generate insights as to what counterterrorism, what terrorist groups around the world are doing," Adm. Michael Rogers told a group gathered in Washington for a cybersecurity summit hosted by the New America think tank.

READ: Jeb Bush defends NSA dragnet

"Do you have new blind spots that you didn't have prior to the revelation," moderator and CNN National Security correspondent Jim Sciutto asked.

"Have I lost capability that we had prior to the revelations? Yes," Rogers responded. "Anyone who thinks this has not had an impact I would say doesn't know what they're talking about."

Snowden himself remains free in Russia. A film about him won an Academy Award on Sunday evening.

Rogers says he knew U.S. infrastructure would likely come under cyber-attack on his watch, but the target of Sony Pictures was a surprise.

"I fully expected, sadly in some ways, that in my time as the commander of United States Cyber Command the Department of Defense would be tasked with attempting to defend the nation against those kind of attacks," he said. "I didn't realize that it would be against a motion picture company, to be honest."

North Korea is widely believed to be behind the hack in response to Sony's production of the film "The Interview," which depicts a comedic plot to kill leader Kim Jong-un

Rogers declined to respond to a question if the United States was behind a retaliatory online attack that took down North Korea's Internet access.

When asked which nations had the ability to strike U.S. cyber interests Rogers declined to provide assessments of most countries.

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NSA: Snowden leaks hurt us

The U.S. should be able to craft a legal framework to let government agencies read encrypted data, Rogers says

It probably comes as no surprise that the director of the U.S. National Security Agency wants access to encrypted data on computers and other devices.

The U.S. should be able to craft a policy that allows the NSA and law enforcement agencies to read encrypted data when they need to, NSA director Michael Rogers said during an appearance at a cybersecurity policy event Monday.

Asked if the U.S. government should have backdoors to encrypted devices, Rogers said the U.S. government needs to develop a "framework."

"You don't want the FBI and you don't want the NSA unilaterally deciding, 'So, what are we going to access and what are we not going to access?'" Rogers said during his appearance at the New America Foundation. "That shouldn't be for us. I just believe that this is achievable. We'll have to work our way through it."

Justsecurity.org has a transcript of an exchange between Rogers and Yahoo CISO Alex Stamos at Monday's event.

Rogers isn't the first member of President Barack Obama's administration to call for encryption workarounds in recent months. In September, after Apple and Google announced encryption features on their smartphone OSes, both FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Eric Holder raised concerns that additional encryption tools would hinder law enforcement investigations.

Stamos questioned whether it is a good idea to build backdoors in encryption. "If we're going to build defects/backdoors or golden master keys for the U.S. government, do you believe we should do so .... for the Chinese government, the Russian government, the Saudi Arabian government, the Israeli government, the French government?" he said, according to the Justsecurity transcript.

Rogers objected to using the word "backdoor". "When I hear the phrase 'backdoor', I think, 'Well, this is kind of shady. Why would you want to go in the backdoor? It would be very public,'" he said. "Again, my view is: We can create a legal framework for how we do this. It isn't something we have to hide, per se."

An NSA spokeswoman wasn't immediately available for further comment.

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NSA director wants gov't access to encrypted communications