Monday

Tag: cellphone

How to Report Smishing to Your Cell Phone Service Provider

Smishing is a type of phishing scam that targets your cell phone through text messages. The goal of smishing is to trick you into clicking on a malicious link, downloading a harmful attachment, or revealing your personal or financial information.

Smishing can be very dangerous and costly, as it can expose you to identity theft, fraud, malware, or unwanted charges on your phone bill. It is important to know how to report smishing to your cell phone service provider if you receive a suspicious text message.

Here are the step-by-step instructions for reporting smishing to your cell phone service provider:

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The original iPhone debuted nearly 10 years ago

The original Apple iPhone debuted on January 7th 2007. While it was a unique product that changed the market for cell phones, you may not remember how different it was from the existing cell phones on the market at the time. Before the iPhone arrived the standard smartphone was a clunky device that was usually half keyboard and half tiny screen. The first iPhone was totally different, but it was also expensive, slow, and available only from AT&T.

When the iPhone first hit the market, there wasn’t an app store, so available applications were difficult to find. You couldn’t even configure a new iPhone without first connecting it to a computer. Texting was difficult and you couldn’t text pictures from the weak built-in camera.

It is useful to remember that version 1 of the iPhone wasn’t exactly awesome by today’s standards, but it was truly remarkable in 2007.

NIST to Ban SMS-Based Two-Factor Authentication

Most people who use two-factor authentication (2FA) use SMS-based 2FA on social media sites or business applications that require extra security. This allows an added layer of security by requiring a password (something you know) with a code sent to your cellphone (something you have). The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the latest draft version of the Digital Authentication Guideline that contains language hinting at a future ban on SMS-based 2FA.

The Digital Authentication Guideline (DAG) is a set of rules and guidelines used by most software companies to build secure services, and by government agencies and private companies to assess the security of their software and IT services. NIST experts are constantly updating the guidelines, in an effort to keep pace with the rapid changes in technology.

NIST officials are discouraging companies from using SMS-based authentication, even saying that SMS-based 2FA might be considered insecure in future versions of the guideline. They argue that SMS-based two-factor authentication is an unsecure process because the user may not always be in possession of the cellphone.

You can read more about the new guidelines here.

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