Sim Swapping — Boon or bane? — Nolij Consulting
Cybercrime is bumping at a high rate. In upcoming days cybersecurity must be keener as new responsibilities mean new forecasts, and it endures to control IT news, with one of the business’s leading cybersecurity establishments. An extensive range of verification explanations starting from short message service (SMS), two-factor authentication (2FA) to multifactor authentication (MFA) can guard an association from cyber-attacks.
2FA and MFA have confirmed to be two active approaches to avoid fissures while sustaining the business and management standards. There are numerous factors to deliberate with all cybersecurity choices, based on a risk investigation. Authentication “factors” are separated into three types of data the user provides:
- Something they know (username and password)
- Something they are (biometrics)
- Something they have (a hardware token)
While implementing the MFA, SMS options are very striking, simple implementation, and low cost as SMS is consistent across the telecom industry and used by anyone, thus sending a one-time password (OTP) to the specific user’s cell phone.
SIM cards are indicated by digital platforms and can be transported from one phone to another. By using a mixture of social engineering and phishing attacks, a rival can imitate a user’s SIM card and validate using the texted OTP.
An opponent will steal a session token by interrupting communications, known as a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack. Understanding how opponents will often use the path, phishing and social engineering are the utmost risk to SMS 2FA. Simply by knowing the target’s cell phone number, email, an enemy can call the victim’s service provider and transfer the target’s SIM data to their device.
Nolij, federal cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, helps organizations prevent these cyberattacks by explaining how these tactics are used, what protections needed to ease these attacks, and by providing constant phishing exercise to staff. The best exercise to reducing any SMS swapping attacks is not to comprise a cell phone used for verification messages in the email signature block. If invaders do not know your number, they cannot imitate you.
