Tech Insights

November 4, 2026

Technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace, creating new opportunities, challenges and risks for businesses, governments and society. In this new section of the Q Report, we share research, perspectives and insights from across the Wesley Clover International technology ecosystem, highlighting emerging trends, industry developments and the innovations shaping our future.

Rogue Base Station Incident Review 2023–2026

By Dr. Tarek Helaly,
President and CEO, thinkRF

Each wireless generation expands what we can do, and what we depend on. The handset began as a way to make calls; now it is how we prove our identity, move money, access official information and reach emergency help.

Each of these was layered onto a radio link built for the one before, inheriting its core assumption: that the network a phone connects to is genuine.

That assumption can now be broken by anyone with a few thousand dollars and a car. The false base station, once a controlled instrument of states, is a commodity: sold openly, run by paid drivers who never meet their employers, and deployed on every continent. In 2026 it reached Canada.

I am convinced this threat will grow, with consequences far beyond the fraud dominating its coverage. A phone on a false network cannot reach emergency services. The device that sends a fraudulent text also records the identity and movements of everyone in range; near a base or ministry for a week, it maps who comes and goes. In Ukraine, drone-borne versions geolocate units and message soldiers directly. Hostile intelligence services no longer need bespoke equipment or cover stories: criminals supply the hardware, and smishing provides the cover. Texts posing as governments and banks have moved crowds and defeated regulators’ authenticity markers. Trust in official messages and the privacy of carrying a phone are exposed in ways no balance sheet shows. As hardware gets cheaper, these effects will compound.

This review is the first attempt to assemble the global record: where each incident occurred, how it was found and how it was stopped. Every entry is sourced from police, regulator, court and specialist reporting in eight languages, and organized by mandate for law enforcement, public safety, defense and cybersecurity.

  • 40+ incidents, 28 countries, 6 continents
  • 100,000 messages an hour, from one device, in one car
  • $350 secondhand price, governments paid $50–$1M
  • 13M network disruptions in one city – 911 access impaired
  • 11 months undetected inside one operator’s own network
  • 624 vehicles searched in one night, to find two devices
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