Sim Swap Scam

Another day, another scam. On Wednesday, a California man – Richard Yuan Li was ordered to pay $61,000 in restitution for his part in a SIM swap scam.

• First, what is a SIM swap? It is a fraudulent way to acquire a phone and direct all incoming calls and texts to another phone. This, in turn, allows scammers to gain access to personal financial information, among other things, thanks to two-factor authentication.
• Li has been ordered to pay over $61,000 and received an additional sentence of three years of probation after pleading guilty.
• This scam targeted over 40 people and robbed one person of more than $57,000. Another individual lost over $4,000 in an undisclosed currency.
• Though just convicted, this scam occurred from July 2018 to December 2018. Li and his co-conspirators convinced an Apple representative of sending them an iPhone. They then “arranged for victims’ telephone numbers to be swapped.”

How does this affect the way we should view security? For starters, one should realize that while two-factor authentication is safer than not having any authorization at all, it still has its vulnerabilities. If you are worried about texting authenticators, a better option may be an authenticator app.