Simjacking
Simjacking
On August 30, 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s 4.2 million followers were subjected to a stream of deeply offensive messages, courtesy of a group of hackers called the “Chuckling Squad.” The group used simjacking to gain control of Dorsey’s phone number, then used a text-to-tweet service acquired by Twitter to post the messages. Despite the messages being visible online for fewer than ten minutes, millions of people were exposed to the offensive tweets.
What you need to know: SIMjacking (also known as a SIM swap scam, port-out scam, SIM splitting and SIM swapping) is a type of account takeover that generally targets a weakness in two-factor authentication and two-step verification in which the second factor is a text message (SMS) or call placed to a mobile telephone. Simply put, simjacking is when an attacker impersonates a target to a cellular provider in order to steal their cell phone number by having it transferred to a different SIM card (which is already in the hacker’s possession).
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