Jonathan

Jonathan

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Scammers Are Using Your Phone to Steal Your Identity

Think your phone is pretty secure? Turns out, it doesn't take a lot for scammers to be able to steal your identity from it.

Think about this - if you've ever purchased anything on the Amazon app, or bought something online, or even just entered a contest on your phone...all of that information is probably stored in there somewhere. And all a scammer needs to be able to steal that information is your phone number.

A new BBB report shows that scammers are using a method called "porting" to steal information. It's a two step process.  First, by using your phone number, they collect as much information as they can, including your name, date of birth, address, and potentially your social security number.  Once they have that information, they can call your cell phone provider and, after pretending to be you, report your phone as stolen.  They can then request that the phone be "ported", or linked to another phone, which of course they own.  From there, they can get into even your most secure of accounts.

Wanna prevent this from happening?

The first thing you can do is call your cell phone provider and ask for "porting security"....basically, an extra PIN or code word that someone would have to give in order to successfully execute a porting request.  After that, just keep an eye out for anything that looks sketchy.  Weird messages from your bank? Security emails? A sudden inability for your phone to do anything except for emergency calls? All of those could be signs someone is trying to (or already did) port your phone.

Keep yourself safe friends!


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