BombOmOm@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Side rant:
To make it worse, SMS is incredibly insecure. Nothing should send you codes via SMS, and if you have the option to use an authenticator app, do that. It’s atrocious so many banks only have SMS as an option.
The really dumb part is, the SMS codes are literally the same authenticator program, but running on their servers and sent do you via an insecure medium.
To make it worse, SMS is incredibly insecure. Nothing should send you codes via SMS
Theoretically sure, but the chances of anyone getting their SMS hacked and their 2FA code being used to compromise their account is so infinitesimally small that it’s not even worth mentioning.
I never understood why SMS is insecure, are you saying it’s easy to intercept someone’s number? How would that even work without the SIM?
It is but only if you are targeted. I completely disagree with people who say it’s insecure because most attacks are remote and in bulk. Which your password they can login from any browser but are stopped by the SMS code.
For the SMS code they can use mostly automated social engineering to trick a certain percentage into giving it up.
However while A SIM attack may be easy enough for a targeted individual, I don’t think it scales: they have to do work that only helps with one user. It’s too “expensive” compared to automated social engineering against a million vulnerable users
Veritasium did a great video on it. Anything I can say about it will be 10x worse than that video.
It’s all just a big “in theory” really. It’s “insecure” in that if someone knows the telco you are with, and the telco that you’re with doesn’t follow procedures to verify that a caller is who they say they are, you could have someone else steal your phone number by getting a replacement sim card sent to them.
In reality it’s nothing to worry about. Like…at all. Every telco I’ve been with sends you a sms to confirm that you requested a new SIM card, and that’s after they’ve confirmed that you are who you say you are via sending you a code on your phone number or email.
The most common way is basically calling up your phone company and pretending to be you saying you needed to switch phones
But also beyond just that the networks that route calls and texts globally are not very secure… and it’s not as hard as it should be to get access to it.
Getting a replacement SIM from the phone company is often shockingly easy, just a tiny bit of social engineering. And then you have access to the number and everything that 2FA “protects”
This shit drives me nuts. I’ve put in a lot of effort to secure my accounts but a number of them require SMS without any opt out. We have known about the risks of SMS plenty long enough at this point.
And one little lapse in not paying a cell phone bill can cause you to lose your phone number, which then means you can no longer authenticate.
this is why I don’t like it and why I often advocate that countries should provide a secure email that you can come to an office in person if you can’t get to it. People get mad as if Im suggesting it should be the only email they have but what I really want is a guaranteed thing that is made as secure as possible and allows for real in person support to make sure you can get access or stop someone that somehow got access.
Ironfist@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
its also very inconvenient if you are outside of the country and dont want to pay for roaming. Cellphone providers should offer a way to forward sms messages to an email address, their own webpage or an app.