The Russian expert explained why scammers distribute free SIM cards

SIM cards that are distributed on the street without signing a contract are most likely issued to someone else. Most often, they are used to establishing control over your account in a service. According to Dmitry Pudov, Deputy General Director for Technology and Development of the Angara Group of information security companies, the use of such a SIM card can turn into various troubles.

“It is better to refuse such offers and certainly not to use these SIM cards. The main argument is that you can’t prove that this SIM card belongs to you. Accordingly, from the point of view of the law, you are not a subscriber and do not have any rights,” explained the expert.

Fraudsters can reissue the card and then all calls and SMS messages will be sent to the new SIM card. Now there are a lot of services and applications that use SMS to restore access in case you forget your password.

“Be prepared to lose access to these services if you use free SIM cards”, warned the expert.

Many Internet services still use SMS for delivery and other confidential information. However, for several years now, short text messages (SMS) have been recognized as an unreliable means of communication. Increasingly, this method of data transportation discredits itself and leads to various incidents.

According to Mr. Pudov, attackers will try to establish control over your accounts, they will request a password reset and, if the password comes to the number of the SIM card issued to you, they will get access to it. Then the only question is how they can benefit from this: monetize the traffic of your social network account, send your friends a request to “urgently help with money”, use your account to send phishing messages.

“Previously, this attack was actively used to intercept online banking confirmation codes to steal money, even if the SIM card belonged to you. Using banking Trojans or other hacking methods, hackers obtained the victims ‘online banking credentials, and then a duplicate SIM card,” concluded Pudov.