Dutch SIM maker Gemalto has confirmed a report from The Intercept revealing GCHQ and NSA hacked into SIM encryption keys that allow phone tapping on a huge number of people globally.

Gemalto provides SIM services to hundreds of carriers globally and makes some 2 billion SIMs a year. The stolen encryption keys allow NSA and GCHQ to essentially keep wiretaps on a person within a certain radius, but The Verge points out it could be part of a bigger operation by both intelligence agencies to create a full mobile surveillance network.

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In a statement, Gemalto claims it found evidence of intelligence agency footprints after an investigation into the suspect hack. It claims NSA and GCHQ only managed to access office networks and didn't attack the encryption database.

The statement comes just one week after the attack. It raises the suspicion Gemalto is trying to cover-up its potential stock losses already plummeting the valuation price by half a billion dollars.

Security experts also question the investigation since it takes governments years to figure out how to remove malware from infected networks. Unless Gemalto has some insanely smart people working for them, it's near impossible the investigation was conducted on all its systems.

Gemalto claims its 2G network would be the only SIM potentially under threat, but this wouldn't mean much since the largest part of the population is now using 3G or 4G. It's clear the company's investigation was short and there was nowhere near enough time to make a concrete statement about what the NSA and GCHQ did.

Interestingly, even with the confirmation from Gemalto, the Dutch government has remained silent on the possibility of two allies attacking corporations based in the country. Belgium was similarly quiet when the Belgacom attack was leaked, pointing to knowledge beforehand or fear of the pressure from the US and UK government.

Privacy and human rights experts are calling for an investigation into both GCHQ and NSA on the grounds internal surveillance and wiretapping is an illegal and unethical breach of human rights.

Some are asking for the public in the U.S. to raise awareness about surveillance in the hopes the next Presidential election will cover this in full. In the UK, several commentators have asked the Prime Minister candidates for the next General Election to take a stand on surveillance, but both the Labour Party and Conservatives seem to be fine with the practice.

TagsGemalto, NSA, GCHQ, SIM encryption keys, SIM, Edward Snowden