Old Nokia 1100s prized by criminal underground

Got an old Nokia 1100 sitting around? You may be sitting on a fortune... albeit with a catch.

Certain circles are said to be paying upwards of $32,000 for the handsets, at least those made in Nokia's Bochum factory in Germany.

Why? According to reports, the criminal underground has found a way to hack into the phones' firmware to allow for illegal bank transfers by reprogramming the phone number on the handset.

Changing the phone number would give hackers the ability to send and receive text messages via the handset, which would in turn open the door for completing basic bank transactions, particularly in Europe.

The details of the hack involve the transmittal of something called a mobile Transaction Authentication Number (mTAN), popular in many overseas countries, which are one-time codes that are sent to customers via text message and are used to complete financial transactions online. Having the mTAN gives hackers the final piece in the puzzle they need (assuming a user ID and password have already been obtained) to drain a bank account under your very nose.

Sounds like the usual criminal shenanigans, but there's a catch... according to an interview with PC World, Nokia says it has no idea why criminals want the 1100 model phones and insists that the software on the phone is not vulnerable to attack -- at least not in any way the company has been able to identify to date.

Meanwhile, Nokia continues to look into the matter, and third-party technology and security outfits are also currently baffled as to how the alleged hack is done -- but many are now also collecting Nokia 1100s for themselves to work on.