FCC reminds US mobile carriers that customer data needs to be protected

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is reminding telcos of their obligations to keep consumers safe from SIM swapping and port-out scams. SIM swapping and port-out fraud are schemes designed to allow criminals to gain control of customer accounts without needing to get their hands on a physical device. In SIM …

[Sora2566]

Or - hear me out here - we all agree that MFA over SMS is basically worthless, and we all switch to TOTP instead.

[An_Old_Dog]

MFA over SMS is basically worthless That's true..

... and we all switch to TOTP instead. I semi-agree. How do we defend against the company designing the little fobs from screwing up royally, as did RSA a fair number of years ago? Or is there a non-fob-based implementation of TOTP?

[Sora2566]

There are a bunch of smartphone apps that do this - the ones that ask you to scan a QR code are doing this.

[NeilPost]

Yes - Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator and Twilo Authy being 3 of the most common examples.

They work great, and should be the default for security … though people without Smartphones and/or the elderly are generally excluded and disenfranchised here.

[Snowy]

Got to protect the data

It is worth more when you sell it if it has not been stolen already!