![]() ![]() Up till now, most likely, your phone number and your email address have been the gateway to all your other accounts. Use a mobile-carrier-specific email address to access that account. It helps but if the hacker talks to an unwitting customer service rep, game over.Ģ. So, add a passcode to your account, but don’t rest easy after that. However, as several hijacking victims discovered, if the hacker finds a customer service rep who forgets to ask for it or lets other information such as address and last four of your Social suffice, then your number can be hijacked anyway. How To Keep Your Phone Number From Being Hijacked Here’s how to protect your phone number and your web accounts for your email, online financial institutions and more. ![]() But they could just as easily perpetrate these crimes against anyone with a cellphone who uses any of the above services. The fact that your phone number is used for security but the telcos are not safeguarding them has created the perfect opportunity for hackers, who have so far made off with millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency. With just one factor (the code), they create a new password for themselves, and now can do whatever they like with your account. You enter the code and gain access to your account.īut when used for password recovery and reset, they don’t even need to enter the first factor to have the codes sent to them. Called two-factor authentication via SMS, it requires a password, which in authentication theory is one factor - something you know - and sends a code to you via text message, with the phone being a second factor - something you have. Additionally, a wide range of companies from financial institutions to email providers use this passcode-by-text security method, which has known weaknesses.
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