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Consumer telecommunications advocate the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network has published a warning on its site about the increasing incidence of identity theft resulting from fraudulent mobile phone number porting.
As ACCAN says in its recently published post, “Fraudulent mobile number porting happens when a scammer uses your personal details to port your mobile number from one provider to another.
“Scammers can get access to your personal details, such as your date of birth, phone number and address, via your social media profiles.”
According to ACCAN, “Earlier this year, two telecommunications industry union officials fell victim to a number porting scam, which eventually resulted in one of the officials providing his bank account details to the scammer.
{loadposition stan}“Since then, ACCAN has received two additional first-hand accounts from victims of this type of fraud, with one victim having lost a substantial sum of money.”
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Victims of mobile porting fraud have had money stolen from online bank accounts linked to their phone numbers.
ACCAN goes on to outline how mobile users can identify whether their number has been ported and what to do if it has.
There are also tips in the post on how mobile consumers can minimise the risk of falling victim to a porting scam.
The ACCAN warning stems from an article, published by a cyber security specialist in January, which outlines details of a case where a client’s mobile number had been fraudulently ported on a number of occasions.
A problem that was identified is that many consumers have personal information in full public view on their Facebook pages.
In addition, business consumers often have freely available personal information published on their websites.
A further problem is that destination telcos in porting scams do not require the same level of security checks that the victim’s resident telco requires, such as a secret PIN.
Victims of mobile porting fraud have had money stolen from online bank accounts linked to their phone numbers and, although it is not explicitly stated, the article reveals a weakness in the banking verification codes system: “Verification codes being sent to you by your bank for large money transfers will be sent to a scammer instead.”
On that last point, consumers who have ditched their keyring banking security token in favour of receiving banking codes by phone may wish to rethink their decision.
