Hackers can take over your phone number and get your texts without SIM swapping

[Dan Druff]

Interesting article on VICE, which did a good piece for once: https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3g8...kari-netnumber

I should say that this won't work for texts you receive over the internet, such Apple iMessages (the messages which show up in blue on your phone). It only works for SMS messages -- old school text messages, using an ancient protocol.

Still very disturbing, and most importantly, it allows hackers to reset your passwords using your phone number (since those send SMS texts).

The guy referred to as "Lucky225" -- a friendly hacker who helped the author research this article and demonstrated how it works -- is someone I actually know. He currently owns the infamous "Mojave Phone Booth" phone number, since the phone booth itself got disconnected.

We had a plan at one point to put up a recording on the line written and narrated by me, regarding the phone booth's history, but we never ended up doing it. Still might happen at some point, though.

[Dan Druff]

I do want to say that, prior to the article being published, the company being exploited (Sakari -- a bulk texting company) has since fixed the flaw.

However, this flaw could easily exist with other services. The problem comes from too many hands being in the SMS cookie jar, allowing smaller companies like Sakari to be manipulated into hijacking numbers, due to lacking security features to prevent it.