Privacy News Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts

[shmu26]

Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency

Hackers have discovered that one of the most central elements of online security — the mobile phone number — is also one of the easiest to steal.

In a growing number of online attacks, hackers have been calling up Verizon, T-Mobile U.S., Sprint and AT&T and asking them to transfer control of a victim’s phone number to a device under the control of the hackers.

Once they get control of the phone number, they can reset the passwords on every account that uses the phone number as a security backup — as services like Google, Twitter and Facebook suggest.

“My iPad restarted, my phone restarted and my computer restarted, and that’s when I got the cold sweat and was like, ‘O.K., this is really serious,’” said Chris Burniske, a virtual currency investor who lost control of his phone number late last year.

Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency

 

[SHvFl]

Ok this is a nice trick but it has to be targeted because you can't do it for thousand and thousand of phone numbers.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Security triangle's payback time. Americans wanted everything easy and this is the result.
In Europe, you can not get it without providing ID and actually going there personally.

 

[RoboMan]

Security triangle's payback time. Americans wanted everything easy and this is the result.
In Europe, you can not get it without providing ID and actually going there personally.

The power of social engineering on a land of fools

 

[In2an3_PpG]

The power of social engineering on a land of fools

Not including US members of MT. I might have been born and raised in the US but i will not be included in this "land of fools". Don't take this as an attack against what you said.

As @SHvFl stated, this has to be a targeted attack so your chance of it happening to you would be very slim if it happens at all.

 

[shmu26]

It actually says in the article itself that it is a targeted attack, usually against known traders in bitcoins. But it's interesting, nonetheless.