Several years ago, one of our top security researchers spoke to three individuals deep in the cybersecurity community. Our researcher had discovered a dangerous trend of SIM-swapping, which had been underneath most people's radar and his discussion confirmed this reality - none of these experts had discovered this. We immediately began to solve for this problem, as we predicted this would become common.
Years later, we're seeing major growth in this area of compromising a person's private security - a prediction we made at the time. Unfortunately SIM-swapping caught many people off guard and its effects are incredibly costly. These compromises will only grow and some countries have passed favorable laws benefiting hackers by allowing it to be easy to swap user data. First, let's look at what a SIM-swap is.
In some countries, cell phones have the ability to have their user profile transferred to a new phone - the data being stored in the global system for mobile, which connects to a mobile network and obtains information about the user. These data can be incredibly valuable depending on how the phone is being used. These data will often also include behavioral data, which is even more valuable (similar to the data compromised in the Exactis hack. Once a hacker determines a target, he will use his target's information to compromise the phone by swapping the user information onto a new phone's SIM. The phone now belongs to him, meaning that all communication goes to the hacker's phone - from text messages, to calls, to information being sent to apps. At this point, the original phone owner has no access to their digital makeup of their phone, even if they own the physical phone.
Check out the highest-rated Automating ETL course on Udemy, if you're interested in data.
People familiar with the brief from the Department of Homeland Security will not feel surprised by this news. We've witnessed warnings about mobile security and expect compromises will continue. Mobile information is rich in metadata that hackers want and need. We discuss this topic and more in our course, The Millionaire Guide To Digital Security, and we cautioned in our limited-time only content some of the hacks we'd see in the future. As shown in this article from our sponsor, we are now witnessing an increase in exactly what we warned.
Would you like to sponsor content at FinTekNeeks? You can get in touch with us by leaving your contact information and we'll work with you from there.
FinTekNeeks used the first three paragraphs from Why People Are Freaking Out About Sim-Swaps with permission from our sponsor, FinTek Development. Image from the site of the sponsor.