SIM swapping is a prevalent type of account takeover fraud, in which an attacker takes over control of your mobile phone number. The attacker can then send and receive calls and texts, including two-factor authentication PINs and one-time passwords.
How to Protect Yourself Against a SIM Swap Attack
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In 2018, numerous Instagram users fell victim to a SIM swapping attack. These users noticed that they were being unexpectedly logged out of their accounts. When they attempted to log back in, they noticed that the handle, email, and phone number associated with their Instagram account had changed.
There are a few things you can do to protect yourself against SIM swapping fraud. You should implement these, along with the tips on how to protect your personal information online below. But taken together, they can change the odds a little bit more in your favor.
Whether you want to avoid SIM swapping fraud specifically or any other online attack, these are all common sense tips that can assist you in protecting your personal information in such a connected world. Almost every type of attack has a social engineering/phishing component. Putting these common-sense tips into practice will help.
The primary goal of SIM swap fraud is typically financial gain, often in the form of stealing bank and credit card information. However, sometimes a SIM swap attack might be intended to embarrass or humiliate the victim when compromising social media accounts.
This is why your phone is essentially dead when you remove your SIM card unless it is on WiFi. SIM swap victims do not receive carrier-facilitated text messages or phone calls once they are disconnected from their original carrier. All communications are routed to the attacker instead. And while WiFi will work, carrier-based internet and telephony will cease.
SIM swap attacks hijack a core weakness surrounding mobile phones and authentication. Specifically, SIM swap hacks target phone numbers and use them to steal passwords, financial data, cryptocurrencies and other valuable items.
The effects of a SIM swap attack can be devastating. When SIM hijackers acquire the date of birth, Social Security number, bank account details, credit card number, social media accounts, and other sensitive information of victims, a series of crimes with a long list of perpetrators starts. Years of identity theft can be in the making, not to mention lost money, work, and reputation. Fraudsters can commit other account takeovers, credit card fraud, and identity theft using those details.
Avoid building identity and security authentication solely around your phone number, including text messaging (SMS). This is vulnerable to SIM swap fraud and other attacks, and text messaging is not encrypted.
Another incident happened in May 2020. Michael Terpin, CEO of Transform Group, filed a lawsuit against 18 year old high school student Ellis Pinsky. The SIM swap scam from 2018 was worth more than $23.8 million, and Pinsky was 15 years old at the time, according to the lawsuit. A connected case has already been settled in favor of the plaintiffs.
Our intelligent platform provides a single gateway to access unique operator data, providing a solution against a number of use cases, including account takeover protection, determining whether call forwarding has been applied which is a common technique used in mobile fraud, in addition to number validity and roaming information.
In 2021,10 individuals who formed part of an international SIM swapping crime ring were arrested after they stole up to $100 million from U.S. citizens. These SIM swapping attacks targeted thousands of individuals from influencers to sports stars and their families. A year-long collaborative investigation between law enforcement in five nations resulted in the 10 arrests.
SIM swapping attacks understandably cause concern among cybersecurity leaders, researchers and the general population. In a landscape of complex cyber threats, SIM swapping is frighteningly simple to carry out while also being quite effective, as the stats released by the FBI and the high-profile nature of some victims both demonstrate.
Sometimes a SIM swap attack does not come from the outside at all, and that makes it all the harder to shut down. In a growing number of cases, groups of hackers will hire an employee of the company, slipping them money under the table in exchange for facilitating their nefarious deeds.
No matter where they come from or how they originate, SIM swapping attacks are bad news. If you want to protect yourself, your phone number, and your identity, being protective is essential. Here are 10 tips to get you started.
SIM swaps are attacks in which scammers move your phone number from a SIM card in your possession to another card that they control. This type of fraud is easy to execute and does not require any code, but it has devastating effects on victims' lives.
The problem is hackers and organized criminals have figured out how to trick phone companies into performing SIM swaps. They can then access accounts protected by SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA).
For convenience, many sites send these OTPs to your phone in a text message, which has its own risks. What happens if an attacker can obtain your phone number, either by stealing your phone or performing a SIM swap? This gives that person almost unfettered access to your digital life, including your banking and financial accounts.
So, how does a SIM-swap attack work? Well, it hinges on the attacker tricking a phone company employee into transferring your phone number to a SIM card he or she controls. This can happen either over the phone, or in-person at a phone store.
Sometimes, the purpose of a SIM-swapping attack is to embarrass the victim. This cruel lesson was learned by Twitter and Square founder, Jack Dorsey, on August 30, 2019. Hackers hijacked his account and posted racist and anti-Semitic epithets to his feed, which is followed by millions of people.
How can anyone possibly protect themselves against this sort of attack? Rarely does anyone have a second phone number, so whatever account you based on your sole number, means they instantly have backdoor access (by fooling your service providers using phished information about you, orally over the phone and by online forms)
One of the main vulnerabilities that leads to SIM-swapping is from social engineering attacks. If you must use SMS 2FA, one approach is to use a Google Voice number. Since Google Voice has minimal customer support, there's little opportunity to perform a social engineering attack.
If your service provider using SMS recovery holds information or assets (e.g. cryptocurrency, information that may permanently damage your personal reputation like very personal media) that are totally unrecoverable after incident, then you should just change provider; you can't protect yourself. Even if you write to customer service, they may bounce you on excuse of paranoia (reason is budget).
Bank example: if your bank operates under PSD2 (e.g., Europe) and they use SMS as the only recovery factor, by the time you report the incident to your provider and/or police, you are protecting yourself from fraudulent trades until you can call the bank and shout "stop everything! somebody stole my number!". The laws, your mileage may vary, according to jurisdiction, can add a layer of protection so that you could get your money back.
Due to the data breach, a SIM swap attack has been launched. Threat actors can take over the target's phone number by convincing their mobile carriers to switch the target's number to a SIM card controlled by the attackers.
Verizon warned its customers that the breach exposed the last four digits of their credit card numbers, which could result in fraudulent SIM card swaps. Additional customer data such as phone numbers, mailing addresses, account plans, and credit card information has been compromised. Verizon has confirmed that the attack did not compromise bank account information, passwords, social security numbers, tax IDs, or other sensitive information.
Verizon's customers can protect themselves from SIM swapping attacks by activating the company's free "Number Lock" protection feature. Once a phone number is locked, it cannot be transferred to another device or service provider. Unless the account owner removes the lock, SIM swapping will be impossible.
The Verizon data breach serves as a reminder that even well-established businesses are susceptible to attack. However, customers can take steps to protect themselves, such as utilizing the 'Number Lock' security feature. By taking precautions and monitoring their accounts, customers can help ensure the security of their information.
The common image of a hacker in the minds of many is someone sitting at an elaborate computer setup using complex code to breach protections and access sensitive personal data. While many instances of data breaches do involve a level of sophistication, breaching personal data through SIM swapping is much less sophisticated.
In order for hackers to be successful, they need to get personal data from the target so they can pretend to be the intended victim when conning the wireless carrier. The more personal data they get from a target, the more likely they are to be successful with the SIM swapping. The personal data that these attackers look for includes usernames and passwords, email addresses, date of birth, and at least the last four digits of credit card numbers. 2ff7e9595c
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