What is SIM Swapping and How it works?

SIM Swapping is a Fraud has took over as the new sensation for hijacking OTP for doing any type of transaction linked with the bank account associated with your Phone number.

How does it works?

The hacker will call you pretending to be someone from the telecom company. He will provide you with a 20 digit SIM Card number (which you aren’t aware of at that time) and will request you to send it as an SMS to a specified number. As soon as you send the message, after a speculated time, your SIM card will get deactivated. And the hacker will now have your phone number activated on his new SIM card. So how does this work? Is it unofficial?

Well, no this is an official method to upgrade your SIM from 2G to 3G or 4G where when you send your new SIM card number to a specified number from your old SIM card. The old one is deactivated and the new one gets activated with the same number. Now, how is this trick useful? Well, the hacker most probably is already having your bank details. What he wants is the just the OTP sent to your phone whenever a transition is initiated from your debit card or bank account. When he gets access to the OTP, he gets access to everything literally.

The cyber crime department has spotted a lot of typical cases all over India regarding it. So it is advised to never ever provide any OTP or do anything suggested by any unknown caller. The main target of such people are old age persons who aren’t much more tech oriented and hence tend to fall under their trap easily.

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