BEWARE of phone SIM swapping SCAM: You can lose your money; here is how

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Phone SIM swapping scams are rising globally. This scary SIM card swap cybercrime can lead to fraudsters getting access to your phone number and this allows them to steal your money from your bank account. Scammers these days are finding innovative ways to swindle money from innocent victims. And one of the more popular ways is SIM card swapping. Yesterday, US's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a new public service announcement where it said that SIM swapping scams have grown by a whopping 15 times in just a period of two years. In 2021 itself, there were 1,611 incidents of this scam where total losses by victims were calculated to be more than $68 million. But it is not just the US which is dealing with this new SIM swap scam, Indians too have been facing this issue. The problem is that phone users themselves give away secret information and OTPs linked to their phone numbers and bank accounts. The intent of the cybercrminals is to lure innocent phone users into revealing their secret data. Unfortunately, too many people fall for this scam. So, the first step is to make sure you protect yourself against online frauds like these by following some simple guidelines. Here is how to avoid SIM swapping scam.

SIM swapping or SIM card swapping does not mean that your physical SIM card is stolen. This is how it works.

Cybercriminals use various techniques to get your SIM card blocked and get its access. There are two steps to this elaborate SIM swapping scam. First, the scammer would send malware to your smartphone through emails, fraudulent apps and malicious websites. Through this, they get access to your basic banking information as well as find out your phone number.

In the next step of the SIM scam, the scammer