WASHINGTON —

The Secret Service stopped a massive telecom threat near the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Tuesday, just as world leaders gathered for meetings.

Agents described the threat as one of the most sweeping communications threats ever found on U.S. soil, involving a hidden network capable of knocking out cell service across the city. Investigators discovered more than 300 SIM servers containing over 100,000 SIM cards within 35 miles of the U.N. headquarters.

These servers had the potential to send out millions of fake calls and messages, which could cripple cell towers, jam 911 calls, and flood networks with chaos. An agent compared the potential impact to the blackouts following 9/11 and the Boston Marathon, noting that this system could trigger such a shutdown

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