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SIM Swapping: What You Need to Know

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Have you heard of SIM swapping? It’s a new trick that hackers are using to get money and mess up your life.

What is SIM Swapping?

So, what is SIM swapping? It’s when a hacker tricks your cell phone company into thinking that you have activated your SIM card on another phone. In other words, the hackers are taking your phone number and then associating it with a different SIM card. If the switch is a success, your device will be deactivated, and all of your phones, texts, data, and more will come to the hacker. This means, of course, that the hacker could get access to any account, including your bank account, and could even totally lock you out of your accounts.

How the SIM Swap Scam is Identified

A hacker doesn’t need your device to do a SIM swap. It can all be done remotely, as long as they can convince your service provider to do it. How do they convince your service provider? They give them information about you, such as your birthday, Social Security number, or account number. They can easily get this information from your mail, email, or account.

So, how do you know if you have been the target of a SIM swap? Generally, it’s when you see weird behavior from your phone, like the inability to send texts or make calls for no reason.

Preventing a SIM Swap

There are a number of things that you can do to prevent a SIM swap. Here are some tips:

  • Start with your online mobile account –Bad guys accessing your online mobile account can own you easily. Set up two factor and use a hard to crack
  • Watch for Phishing – Most scammers get the information they need to SIM swap by using phishing emails. These are fake emails that are sent to potential victims, and might have weird links, fake login screens, or other methods for tricking people into giving up their info.
  • Don’t Share Your Info Online – Another thing to do is to watch what you share online. Scammers can also get information from what people share with others on social media, etc.
  • Protect Your Accounts – Check all of your accounts for security and consider doing things like setting up two-factor authentication, hard to guess passwords, and think about unlinking your phone from your accounts.

Are You a Victim of a SIM Swap?

If you are a victim of a SIM swap, there are certain things you can do:

  • Contact law enforcement, your bank, the three credit bureaus, and your cell phone provider.
  • Change all of your passwords, especially Venmo, PayPal, and any account that is tied to your phone number. Make sure that confirmations are NOT sent to your phone number.
  • If, for any reason, you cannot log into your account, you should contact customer service of the company ASAP and give them a heads up about what happened.

ROBERT SICILIANO CSP, is a #1 Best Selling Amazon author, CEO of CreditParent.com, the architect of the CSI Protection certification; a Cyber Social and Identity Protection security awareness training program.

Software Makes Dumbphones Smart for Facebook

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Facebook for SIM, from Gemalto enables anyone to enjoy Facebook on all handsets, even if without a data connection or data subscription. With this technology, Gemalto brings Facebook to millions of mobile phone users regardless of their handset type.

“Increasingly people want to be able to stay connected and communicate with their friends on Facebook anytime, anywhere,” said Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook. “Gemalto has developed a creative solution in Facebook for SIM that enables people without mobile data plans to stay connected to their friends on Facebook in an affordable way.”

Gemalto’s software development team has embedded the software application into the SIM. This ensures the Facebook application is compatible with 100% of SIM-compliant mobile phones.

From Wikipedia: “A subscriber identity module or subscriber identification module (SIM) on a removable SIM card securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) used to identify a subscriber on mobile telephony devices (such as mobile phones and computers). The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device.”

The innovative solution provides mobile subscribers with simple and convenient access to core Facebook features such as friend requests, status updates, wall posts or messages. It also offers unique functions: people can sign up for this service and log in directly from the SIM application. Interactive Facebook messages pop-up on the phone’s screen so people can always share up-to-the-minute posts and events. One can also automatically search their SIM phonebook for other friends and send them requests.

Facebook for SIM is extremely easy to use and is available to everyone. No data contract or application download is needed, because the software is embedded in the SIM and it uses SMS technology. As a result, it works for prepaid as well as for pay-monthly customers. Following an initial limited free trial period, Facebook for SIM then operates on a subscription model via an unlimited pass for a given period of time.

Robert Siciliano, personal security expert contributor to Just Ask Gemalto. Disclosures