topic Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response in Get Support

Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Kaitrin — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 07:01:51 GMT

Hi all,

I have been a customer of Public Mobil for about a year now. Up until now I was really enjoying the coverage and lower cost plans.

However, 2 days ago my SIM card was hacked - I don't know the full details of this but from my understanding it involves getting someone's number and attaching it to a new SIM, wherein you are able to get into all of their two-factor authentication accounts (gmail, etc). Within minutes I had no service, my gmail account had been compromised, and had charges on my credit cards for thousands of dollars.

I contacted public mobile, and the moderator (not until the next morning) called this an "emergency" (and rightfully so) and provided two PM fraud phone numbers to call in order to try and expedite my request for help. I called both of these lines for the past 2 days, and both of them replied with a response akin to "We're sorry, but our fraud line is unavailable right now, please leave a message and we will try to get back to you within 2 business days." I apologize for the honesty - but this really does not seem like an adequate response to an emergency situation from PM. I don't think it's the moderators fault, but seems like more of a systems issue. I would be fully willing to take responsibility if I was personally responsible for any data breach from my own fault (I cannot identify anything), but I really find the response from PM to be insufficient.

From what I have read, it seems that given how PM operates, it is more prone to SIM swapping/hacking than other carriers, and at this point I am questioning if it is worth it to stay with PM if there is a higher likelihood of this happening.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with PM's response to such situations.

I'm also wondering if anyone has more understanding on PM's susceptibility to SIM hacking compared to other carriers given how they are set up.

Grateful for anyone's thoughts/experience with this kind of thing.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

softech — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 18:38:15 GMT

Honest, this has been an ongoing concern with PM slow response on serious issues like this. Not sure if they hear and if they will response by changing their support model and give an more speedy response on Fraud/Simjack issue

Curious, what 2 numbers they gave you? would be nice for us to keep it just in case

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

darlicious — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:02:17 GMT

@Kaitrin

I'm sorry to hear this has happened to you and with extra unlucky timing of the past month of extremely slow response times not very helpful for your situation. I may have missed it but did you post about this on the community when it happened?

Oops...I hit that dang post button by accident!

The community had become very adept at recognizing this issue and asking the customer ( like you) to check if their sim card matches the one in the account. If it does not you are advised to immediately suspend your service via lost/stolen and change your password. We then advise to check all of your financial accounts and finally to submit a ticket to get help from the moderators.

With wait times being what they are we also suggest buying a new sim card and switching it in the account to get your service back in your hands without delay. Furthermore I suggest you create a pm specific email for extra protection and a strong password used only for your pm account.

This scam often starts with paypal or similar accounts with the same email and/or passwords used for multiple accounts coupled with too much personal info shared on social media accounts. Do a google search of your name and see what comes up.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

will13am — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 18:55:52 GMT

@Kaitrin , it is doubtful that Public Mobile is any easier to hack and SIM jack than any other service. It is all about keeping the account password fresh, long and secure. That said, having a public community forum makes the reporting of such issue known to everyone much more so than with any other service. The long term repercussion could be a bigger target on Public Mobile customers due to a perception that this service is low hanging fruit for hacking. This is just an educated guess.

I hope you have taken all necessary actions to secure affected accounts while the SIM jacking issue works its way through the system. If you have access to the self serve, report the phone as lost/stolen to prevent further use of your phone number. Obtain a replacement SIM card and update it in the self serve account to recover your service.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Camera4617 — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:02:34 GMT

I agree with you about statement "is it worth to stay with PM" if there is high risk of SiM hijacking. Honestly, I haven't even heard of it before I joined to PM and I see on regular basis that it is happening. PM needs to ensure (or at least try to) with some two-factor authentication that SiM hijacking is not so easy to do. I do create strong passwords, but no password is safe 100%, it is just matter of time to crack it using proper tools. So, I can live with 'slow self-serve' site, with potential autopayment failures, but I cannot nor want to worry about what if somebody takes my phone number.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

darlicious — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:09:40 GMT

@Camera4617

2FA is part of the problem that leads to this fraud occurring. Without it simjacking becomes irrevelant.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Camera4617 — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:17:00 GMT

@darlicious Yes but also 2FA is the only way to protect yourself from cracking passwords and taking over your accounts. PM should protect customers from SiM hijacking in any way it can as it is in control of it, not customers.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

darlicious — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:22:18 GMT

@Camera4617

I don't use 2FA on anything important and the odd thing I do have it on goes to a family members phone number. I'm old school.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Camera4617 — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:30:27 GMT

@darlicious Sure, that's your choice. And you might be OK with it, but if somebody hacks your password, they are in. So, either way there is a risk but that doesn't change the fact that PM should protect its customers. If not, I'll go where they do.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

HALIMACS — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:35:50 GMT

@Kaitrin Below in this link/URL is a very good article on Sim swapping/ hacking:

https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/sim-swap-fraud-how-to-prevent-your-phone-number-from-being-stolen/

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

darlicious — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:41:51 GMT

@Camera4617

I don't disagree that there is room for improvement in regards to simjacking but the best protection is keeping your personal info private, a pm specific email and a strong password. So unless someone guesses my password which is very unlikely or convinces a mod they are me also very unlikely ( you google my name nothing comes up except other people.) I am only susceptible to a data breach.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

kselmak — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:51:08 GMT

Getting into your selfserve and suspending u account as well as changing password and security questions is the first thing to do.

Contacting all the financial institutions where you used your number is the next step, then getting your credit score (so that there are no more surprises) speed also be good.

To revert charges back to your sim card you need to contact moderators.

Some people don't want to wait so they get the new sim, in that case you should still contact moderators so they know and you may be reimbursed.

How do they swap sim numbers, I'm not sure.

The fact that so many people still have access to their selfserve makes me think they are not logging into the account to do it, otherwise they would change the passwords right away

But then again they don't want to own your account either, they only want it for couple of minutes to make it into your bank account, so why bother

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:54:11 GMT

It has been suggested around here that at the pressing go for Change SIM that it pops up with requiring the account PIN. Failing that then nothing changes.

About number theft, it's all very well to require a final text confirmation for port-outs but it's useless when the SIM can be changed easily enough once managing to get into the account. Or hackers are using other methods that we can't even protect against.

Fraudulent port-out is number theft leaving the account behind. Sim-swap is account theft continuing to use the number.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

softech — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 19:56:33 GMT

.. someone did suggest there might a data breach earlier, too..

another thing, i wonder if it is more common with PM here (because of the fact that it's complete self-serve online?) or we notice this a lot here because we follow this community closely? wonder if Simjack happens as often in other providers ..

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Kaitrin — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:09:21 GMT

I have similar thoughts to yours. The numbers were:

1-844-474-4141

647-837-7030.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

kb_mv — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:17:31 GMT

I would have thought that following the alleged data breach last year that the company would have sent notice to ALL account holders that a "potential" breach had occurred and they advised everyone change their password to be on the safe side. I don't think that happened.

As for 2FA and password resets attached to your phone number.... well everyone (at least the regulars) probably knows where I stand on the issue, bad idea for the very reasons we see happening here. I communicated with a recent victim of this and asked them what PM was able to tell them about the breach. I was interested to know whether they could provide an idea of IP address, time/date, if user name & pw was used vs a ticket to try and get in etc. I am honestly surprised that this individual said PM didn't say anything about any of it other than to say sorry this happened.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Kaitrin — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:18:39 GMT

Thanks for the reply darlicious,

I did end up buying another SIM card and was able to successfully switch the service back, now however I have been locked out of my account and still waiting for a reply from PM.

I have made a PM specific email - although I'm not certain that this would entirely eliminate the threat of a SIM swap.

Do you know if I am able to attach a PIN number to my account in order to make it more secure? Something that would increase the security and prevent a SIM swap/Port in the future?

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

will13am — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:19:29 GMT

@darlicious wrote:
@Camera4617
I don't use 2FA on anything important and the odd thing I do have it on goes to a family members phone number. I'm old school.

Sometimes this cannot be helped. My bank forces it on me.

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

kb_mv — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:21:11 GMT

@Kaitrin wrote:
Thanks for the reply darlicious,

I did end up buying another SIM card and was able to successfully switch the service back, now however I have been locked out of my account and still waiting for a reply from PM.
I have made a PM specific email - although I'm not certain that this would entirely eliminate the threat of a SIM swap.
Do you know if I am able to attach a PIN number to my account in order to make it more secure? Something that would increase the security and prevent a SIM swap/Port in the future?

@Kaitrin The best thing you can do is use a secure password. All of my online accounts use something like this: ArUL46g4dYFKsA

Re: Sim Hacking/Sim Swap and PM's Response

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:24:54 GMT

@Kaitrin wrote:

Do you know if I am able to attach a PIN number to my account in order to make it more secure? Something that would increase the security and prevent a SIM swap/Port in the future?

This has only been a suggestion by the regulars around here. I first heard of it from username gpixel4. It doesn't exist.

This place also moves at a glacial pace and barely does what's required of it from government regulation.