Hacking with SIM card swap - Beware!

I never consider a phone safe for protecting my most sensitive data so I don't do banking, investments, credit card checking or anything like that on my phone. Sim card swaps are a relatively new thing and can be very damaging if someone takes control of your phone number. It often starts when they break into your email account and roam around, putting together a dossier on your various accounts by looking at your past emails. If they find your cell phone number they can try to do the SIM swap and then they are off to the races, often with help from an insider at a service provider. It's amazing what $50 will buy when dealing with a dishonest employee. I would raise hell with T-Mobile to understand why a SIM swap was allowed without checking your ID. And change your email password now if you aren't using a separate password account.

If your credit file isn't frozen with Experian, TransUnion and Equifax do that now. You'll get a password so you can unlock them if you go shopping for credit (new car, mortgage, credit card). And all three agencies are now allowing FREE WEEKLY reviews of your credit file through April 2022. Request them through www.AnnualCreditReport.com They usually provide ONE free report per year per agency (US Government requirement) but have changed it to weekly for the next year due to Covid. It's good financial hygiene to browse through your credit file, and your spouse's, just to check nothing has crept in or they are reporting something wrong that is hurting your FICO score. Mistakes do happen.

Last Saturday I downloaded all three reports for me and my wife.....six total. All was in order. Many credit cards now give you your FICO score monthly (AMEX, CITI, Bank of America, among others) so it is good to keep an eye on that, too. The free credit reports do not include the FICO score, the agencies fought Congress on that one since at the time it was a money maker for them, but now many of the cards give the score away to their card holders.

Damn I had a warning from a crypto place to change my password as there was a data leak. As soon as I saw that I checked and saw someone did attempt to access my account. Fortunately nothing missing but yeah that is scary and I was reading about those sim swaps and they are becoming relatively common. I like to leave some on the exchange as one of these days I will buy a watch with the damn stuff. Coinbase is having their ipo this year aren’t they? Not saying the sim swap is their fault but trying to actually talk to someone is quite difficult.

Don’t knock paper wallets either I really feel safe it being completely off tech though I do like my trezor

Well yeah the paper wallets it’s literally on a sheet of paper. Of course if you lose it or it becomes illegible it poses a risk but I don’t think you can get much safer from online bandits than having your crypto on paper in a lockbox. I liked the staking because it will help with the eth 2.0. The 7.5apy is a bonus certainly but there are risks involved with staking. I just find vitalki amazing . He created the most used blockchain before he was 25. Amazing guy.

He really is. I only grasp the tech in the simplest way as I’m not a tech guy but I’ve read up quite a bit and learn about these theoretical algorithms he is working on it’s really quite mind blowing. The guy is out to change the world in a way. Granted there is risk involved as he releases these updates live, vulnerabilities may exist, the whole thing could fall apart but it’s kind of exciting to be part of. When non tech geeks get fascinated and actually spend time reading what he’s doing it gotta say something. I think percentage wise eth has outdone bitcoin this year, or was it just the last few months. I see those crazy price predictions eth 10k by 2022. I’m not saying I believe that, anyone can shout out numbers but I’m really hoping it all comes together for the project and the updates I really want to see what eth can do in the future. Perhaps I’ve grasped 10% of some of the technical stuff I’ve read and that’s being generous and it is some fascinating stuff. He may be getting tech beamed to his brain by aliens.