Lsbcal
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Just thought I would pass this along.
My cell phone service provider (Tmobile) used to just use the last 4 digits of the SS number for the caller ID
. The danger is that a hacker could obtain this quite easily, call in and claim that he lost his phone and please send him a sim card for his new phone. So if a hacker were able to get your SS number or even the last 4 digits, they'd be able to switch the service to their phone. Then as I understand it they could they could take over your email account if you have an email with your cell service provider. They do this via SMS ID. And then having your phone and your email they can get into much worse mischief by possibly accessing your financial accounts.
Anyway, Tmobile and probably other service providers have tightened up security. They now allow one to put a real password on the account for calling in and identifying yourself. So no longer can a caller pretend to have lost the phone and want to get another sim card for their new phone.
For Tmobile the password could be something like SILLY5385. Just something that is not easily guested or hacked from your social media information or other logins. The hacker does not have the luxury of a huge number of unsuccessful attempts when calling in and using an ID. So you can simply call customer service (611) and change to a secure PW.
If your provider is still using the SS number, you could tell them you made a mistake and change that number to something that cannot be obtained from a hack of another site. My so called SS number was never the real SS number.
The rep at Tmobile told me this has something they've just instituted in the last 2 months or so.
My cell phone service provider (Tmobile) used to just use the last 4 digits of the SS number for the caller ID
. The danger is that a hacker could obtain this quite easily, call in and claim that he lost his phone and please send him a sim card for his new phone. So if a hacker were able to get your SS number or even the last 4 digits, they'd be able to switch the service to their phone. Then as I understand it they could they could take over your email account if you have an email with your cell service provider. They do this via SMS ID. And then having your phone and your email they can get into much worse mischief by possibly accessing your financial accounts. Anyway, Tmobile and probably other service providers have tightened up security. They now allow one to put a real password on the account for calling in and identifying yourself. So no longer can a caller pretend to have lost the phone and want to get another sim card for their new phone.
For Tmobile the password could be something like SILLY5385. Just something that is not easily guested or hacked from your social media information or other logins. The hacker does not have the luxury of a huge number of unsuccessful attempts when calling in and using an ID. So you can simply call customer service (611) and change to a secure PW.
If your provider is still using the SS number, you could tell them you made a mistake and change that number to something that cannot be obtained from a hack of another site. My so called SS number was never the real SS number.
The rep at Tmobile told me this has something they've just instituted in the last 2 months or so.
