by Jason Cipriani
SIM swap fraud: What it is, why you should care and how to prevent it
Phone number theft is something you need to be aware of -- it's all too easy to give hackers the keys to your online accounts.
Scams related to the coronavirus pandemic are on the rise. Phone calls and text messages claim to offer a cure or test kits, but what the scammers are really after is your personal information. With that information, hackers and scammers can do all sorts of things, like take control of your phone number and then access your online accounts.
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In January, a published study revealed how incredibly easy it to do, potentially leading to thousands of dollars in fraud -- that's your money on the line. The practice of SIM swapping is becoming increasingly common, and despite carriers putting safeguards in place, researchers were able to demonstrate taking over your phone number quickly and with ease.
The SIM card inside your phone is a small plastic chip that tells your device which cellular network to connect to, and which phone number to use. We rarely ever think about SIM cards, except maybe when we get a new phone.
sim-cards
SIM cards seem so minor, don't they?
SIM swapping occurs when someone contacts your wireless carrier and is able to convince the call center employee that they are, in fact, you, using your personal data.
They do this by using data that's often exposed in hacks, data breaches, or information you publicly share on social networks to trick the call center employ into switching the SIM card linked to your phone number, and replace it with a SIM card in their possession.
Once your phone number is assigned to a new card, all of your incoming calls and text messages will be routed to whatever phone the new SIM card is in.
At first glance, it seems somewhat harmless. But when you consider that most of us have our phone numbers linked to our bank, email and social media accounts, you quickly begin to see how easy it would be for someone with access to your phone number can take over your entire online presence.
READ MORE ON :
www.cnet.com/how-to/sim-swap-fra...
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By Lawrence Abrams
LiveAuctioneers has disclosed a data breach after a well-known data breach broker began selling 3.4 million stolen user records on a hacker forum.
LiveAuctioneers is an auction site that allows people worldwide to bid on auctioned items in real-time.
On July 10th, 2020, a data breach broker began selling a database that allegedly contains 3.4 million user records stolen from the LiveAuctioneers' site.
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BleepingComputer was told by the data broker that the database is being sold for $2,500.
This data allegedly contains user's email addresses, usernames, MD5 hashed passwords, names, phone numbers, addresses, IP addresses, and social media profiles.
LiveAuctioneers database sold on a hacker forum
LINK
www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/se...
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I never had any IT studies, all my knowledge is gathered by reading over the internet, trying to make something work but sometimes i find myself giving advices that could help people if not being protected efficiently at least not spending a lot of money on hardware or software.
The cause of changing people's mind about using MS windows is lost so I will focus on non operating system appliances.
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Many friends ask me if they should buy this expensive security hardware costing a lot of money or that software claiming to holistically protect their internet experience. My opinion is that an expensive hardware or an expensive software (with 24 hours support ) will not do the work because the weak chain is always the end user. Hacking tools are easily spread and more efficient when they take control of the human weakness. What does this means ?
- Enabling services through communication apps because "everyone is using this"
- Installation of fancy programs that can record the girls you peeping on...
- Programs that promise weird things, like "who's tracking me", "who's talking about me", "mask my identity while I abuse on someone else" e.t.c. There are similar programs but they come with a relative knowledge of protocols and computing and they usually are not a few clicks away from the end purpose.
-Overloading the browsers with add-ons that make our life easier. They some times make our pocket empty.
The communication of our desktop environment as part of our operating system with the internet is performed by services corresponding to the applications that we use and the services the operating system uses to maintain itself.
Every flaw on the design (lines of code that can be exploited by hackers - that can code or others that use the hack tool the previous have created) of our operating system, of our hardware(router-modem-IOT, e.t.c), every malicious program we install, every focused attack on us in case we were weak enough to entrust our IP to others (will try and make a post about this some time when free) or accidental attack when we are scanned and used as target group can make a great hole in our defence. Of course there are many other ways, like for example the physical access but I'm trying to keep my thread short.
So what can we do? After we overcome of course our panic:
- Must not panic
- Methodically set a reading schedule. On the operating system you use, the router you use, the firewall you use e.t.c. It can be only 5 minutes and not more. But every time you become more and more familiar with terminology, security practices and technology. For example set a reading schedule for "What is IP, what is my IP, how do i reveal it? How do i protect my IP" Just google these questions (I don't use Google btw) It won't take more than 5-10-20 mins depending on how fast a man can read. Perhaps new questions will come up. Cool, don't panic, you don't have to do the reading in one night.
So after all this I come to my conclusion thesis that computer security is a holistic approach on a very undefined area of continuously changing and developing methods of attack (in personal, group, governmental, e.t.c scales)
Buying many times a hardware costing a days work or a months work for others will not solve the problem, likewise a software costing xxxx $
The way to protect ourselves is take care of the whole in our network, from the entry point (fiber, lan, xdsl modem) the routers, access points, operating systems and on each computer or IOT enabled coffee machine, the services, the programs we select to use and the way we use it.
Would that be sufficient? NO. It will take time and until we do it, perhaps something will change in our hardware and in our software but we have the basis of the proper culture that prevents being hacked.
Have i been hacked? I guess many times....
As an example, mostly about the insecurity that the wrong culture of using the internet creates will post 2 links about the man in the middle attack. It can be performed in many levels apart from our responsibility but our wrong culture on using the browser is , my opinion, the most provocative and responsible for attacked systems.
www.upguard.com/blog/man-in-the-...
www.csoonline.com/article/334011...
I see my post not as a guideline but as a starting point for dialogue, sharing of experience from more IT educated persons and more
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support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/...
🔴Learn to gather data to diagnose issues and facilitate troubleshooting with Cloudflare support. For most troubleshooting, Cloudflare strongly recommends generating a HAR file as a starting point.
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Sometimes the internet sites face problems so they may not be available. If people try to connect may have troubles. So in case you didn't know this there are internet sites that can test if your favorite site is up or down. An example :
www.isitdownrightnow.com/
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While GIMP and Inkscape for graphic/photo works (see part 1 of this)are quite well known, in this part i would like to introduce you to a video editing program that is free AND awesome (and maybe not so well known):
Da Vinci Resolve (version 16)
this is a screenshot of the worksspace:
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Test your Internet connection bandwidth to locations around the world with this interactive broadband speed test
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As most of us have more time than usual: WHY NOT become a creator?
Most here are cineasts and great movie lovers, in DOC we trust and we all have
two.movies on speed dial.
During the last 5-7 years free software available to anybody has developed RAPIDLY and the gap to expensive professional tools has gotten smaller every year.
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In my opinion the freedom to become creative, to share your works of art,fun,fotos, graphics, tunes and just anything and being creative
IS (in my humble opinion) THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT FREEDOM of our HOLY NET
(Right after the freedom of information of any kind for anybody from anybody)
So here are some recommendations
I hope you find it interesting and -maybe- try some
THERE IS NOTHING compared to the feeling when you created something and after some work look at it and say. "wow cool! that looks awesome. I made that!" really really really!
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I've created a new community because I see that users need it.
Tech Support is a community to find solutions to all your tech support issues. Support for your PC, desktop and laptop. Windows and Mac. Software.
Feel free to ask any tech questions and help other users as well.
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1FRAC1
Nasos
Adrian88
Dr.Evil
