Just a strong password and two-factor authentication are not enough to keep your accounts safe. There is much more to this. The harm that hackers can cause with by just using your cell phone number is way too much and beyond repair for sure. The Social security number or the bank numbers is not the most important numbers of your life and you can hide them but the hackers to harm you can use the cell phone number, which you cannot hide.
It takes very little effort to use your cell phone number and create a mess on your online life.
#1. The need to Protect Your Phone Number
It is simple because it is a single point of failure. The number is used multiple times at multiple places, to download a game or log in to an app, to reset the password or simply while dining at a hotel, and use he two-factor authentication to surely login the accounts.
Therefore if anyone steals your phone number they simply become you. Thus the hijacker can start to hijack your accounts one by one and reset the passwords sent to your phone number.
To trick the automated systems it is very simple, like the bank as they would consider it to be a call made by you to the customer care. This is not all they can hijack your email and then expose the data of your employer and this is quite a threat.
#2. How can hacker steal the phone number?
It is just a very simple process by which the hacker can steal your phone number. The phone numbers are easily found and you agree to this. They get the number and call the carrier impersonating the customer and answer a few simpler question like your birthday or anniversary and ‘port out’ the phone number to a different carrier or SIM card.
This just ‘a call away’ method used in its literal terms. As soon as the ‘port out’
The phone number activates as hackers number and they become you without much effort and now can cause damage to you.
#3. How do you know that your number has been hacked?
In most of the cases of the number being hacked your call service is lost for no reason. From here the task of password resetting for your social media accounts Twitter, Facebook, Email, and much more is really simple like we do in our daily life. Now the hijacker can steal your cryptocurrency or paytm balance or delete all your data.
#4. How can the number be protected?
Just like the two- factor authentication is applied to you online accounts, in the same fashion you can apply secondary security code to your cell phone account also. This can be done either by a call to the customer care service or just online by you.
It is better to do it with a call to customer care as they will set a secondary password on your number and that only you the account holder can change. The secondary code is different for different carries but it is complex 4 to 6 digit that only you know. Technology can harm you and protect you so be safe.