A Hacker's Insight Into Sim-Swap & Social Engineering

Ethereum's Founder Vitalik's Troubling Sim-Swap

In September 2023 an article was published online regarding Ethereum’s founder Vitalik getting his SIM card swapped. This means attackers were able to social 1engineer the phone provider and pose as Vitalik to get a new SIM card with the same phone number. They then used this to reset his X/Twitter account as this is possible with just SMS verification.

We want to give extra attention to SIM-swaps as it has become a very common attack vector over the last few years and as is seen here can even pose a risk for tech savvy personalities.

SMS Verification on Major Platforms

Unfortunately, many platforms still offer password recovery or resets by phone/SMS, which not only includes X/Twitter but other big-name platforms such as Google or Discord as well. Besides password recovery, many platforms also support SMS as a two-factor authentication.

Learn how to protect your online identity and read the full blog by clicking the link below.

Photo: Istock.com/JM_Image_Factory