The growing adoption of multifactor authentication (MFA) has resulted in a proportionate rise in cyberattacks that target MFA technologies. In a recent Private Industry Notification (PIN), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recognized how recent cyberattack campaigns are focusing directly on circumventing MFA. The FBI outlined three specific and comprehensive tactics that hackers have been developing in order to bypass MFA.
One of the first MFA notifications mentioned by the FBI PIN outlines the growing number of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card-swapping attacks. Each telephony-capable mobile device has an onboard SIM card, programmed with the customer's phone number, and tied to his or her respective account with the carrier. A SIM-swap attack involves switching a victim's phone number over to a different SIM card on a device controlled by a hacker. This is often accomplished through social engineering of cellular phone customer service representatives, who are often unprepared to handle these savvy adversaries.
To social engineer such an attack, an adversary tries to take advantage of a person's naturally trusting tendencies. For example, the attacker might call the victim's carrier posing as the victim in an emergency situation, demanding that the target phone number be transferred to a different SIM card on new device immediately. In an effort to help the struggling "customer" reach a resolution quickly, many representatives end up processing the hacker's request. The result: The adversary now has a device with the victim's phone number programmed to it, while cellular service to the victim's actual device is disconnected.
SIM Swap & Insecure Web Design The damage that can be wr ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
