SIM Swapping

SIM and eSIM Swapping Fraud involves criminals taking control of a victim’s phone number by tricking their mobile carrier into transferring the number to a new sim card or eSIM in the fraudster’s possession. Once they have control of the phone number, they can intercept calls and text messages, including those used for two-factor authentication, allowing them to access the victim’s online accounts, such as banking, email, and social media. 

These two types of SIM Swapping work in different ways and measures can be taken to protect yourself from these: 

• In the case of physical SIM Swapping – within your phone’s settings, you should find an option to add an encryption lock to your SIM (a passcode), which means that when that SIM is removed and placed into another device, that passcode must first be entered before the card is initialised.  
• In the case of eSIM Swapping – despite having a non-physical SIM active on your phone, if you are using a service provider who’s web/app account access is not protected by two-factor authentication, and your password to access this account is leaked, a scammer may access your account, request a replacement SIM or eSIM, activate this on their device, making your defunct, and therefore compromising your phone number. It is therefore important to ensure that your passwords are secure and complex, and it is worth looking into whether two-factor authentication is an option with your phone service provider for extra peace of mind.