A man in Florida lost more than $700,000 after being targeted by a SIM swap scam. The FBI has recently warned of such schemes, which involve criminals “impersonating a victim and tricking the mobile carrier into switching the victim’s mobile number to a SIM card in the criminal’s possession,” the bureau states.
Florida news station WFLA reported Wednesday that a man in Tampa, Florida, lost his life savings to such a scheme and that the FBI is investigating the incident.
“My phone said, ‘No service, SIM card.’ And I didn’t even know what a SIM card was,” the man, Dan Clark, told the station. WFLA reported that once the criminal had gotten ahold of Clark’s phone number, they were able to steal funds from his accounts.
“I lost everything in a matter of a few hours,” Clark said.
AFP
What is SIM Swapping?
To gain access to someone’s SIM card, the FBI says that criminals use phishing techniques “to deceive employees into downloading malware used to hack mobile carrier systems that carry out SIM swaps,” or impersonate victims to trick mobile carrier employees into switching their phone number to a different SIM card. They could also pay off employees to switch a number to a different SIM card, the FBI said.
Once a SIM card is swapped, “the victim’s calls, texts, and other data…
