Sim Swap Fraud | How Hackers Can Steal Money From Your Bank Account?

In this emerging world of technology, numerous technologies and gadgets are discovered and we use these technologies and gadgets to make our life easy. Many impressive discoveries have been happened just because of developed technologies and also these discoveries have affected our lives in a good and bad manner. Some people use these technologies in a legit way but some people have a bad intention and they use technologies and gadgets to perform illegal activities or frauds. One of the perilous frauds is sim swapping. which came in light when some people complained that massive amount of money has been stolen from their bank account after some unknown phone call.

What is sim swap fraud and how it is done?

Sim swap is a type of cyber fraud in which hackers fool the victim to get personal details. Hackers mostly use phishing technique to get the information of the victim. In this technique, a hacker sends a link to the victim by email or by some other method and they are so much clever that it is difficult to recognize that the sender is not a legit person but that doesn't mean that you can't save yourself from the hackers. If you want to save yourself from this type of frauds then don't click on any link if you are not damn sure that the sender of the email is the legitimate user.

Sim swap can be done by another method also in which hacker directly call to the victim and pretend to be their service provider and ask for their personal details like their name, address, bank account details, credit card details etc. Some people are so much dumb that they can be easily fooled because they are not aware of these frauds. 

After collecting all the personal details, hackers contact with the service provider of the victim and claim that they are the user of that sim and they have lost their sim or their phone has been stolen. Hackers ask the service providers to reissue new sim with old number and service provider ask about personal details to ensure that the person who is claiming that he/she is the owner of the sim is the original one.

Once the new sim is reissued then the service provider block the old sim and now the hacker has your phone number and the hacker can use it to steal money from your bank account because for transactional purposed OTP (One Time Password) is necessary and the hacker has victim's phone number so all the messages will be received at the hacker's phone.

Also Read: How to protect your website content from being stolen?

How to keep yourself safe from SIM swap fraud?

• First of all, just don't share your personal details with the unknown person.
• If your mobile phone is out of network since the 3-4 hours continuously then this can be a sign that you are a victim of SIM swap fraud and you should immediately contact your service provider.
• Do not share your 20 digit sim number with anyone because it can be used to perform this perilous fraud.
• Check your bank account statement on a daily basis and keep yourself updated.

Senior citizens and people who are not aware of these type of frauds are the main targets of hackers because they can be easily tricked. So share this information with everyone and make them aware of these type of frauds.