Malicious SS7 activity and why SMS should never by used for 2FA

Sun Apr 18 13:28:41 UTC 2021

On Sat, Apr 17, 2021 at 6:00 PM Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anecdotal: With the prior consent of the DID holders, I have successfully ported peoples' numbers using nothing more than a JPG scan of a signature that looks like an illegible 150 dpi black and white blob, pasted in an image editor on top of a generic looking 'phone bill'.

Hi Eric,

SMS for 2FA is fine. It's understood that a single authentication
factor is not secure enough; that's why you use two. SMS for 1FA is
hugely risky and should not be used for anything important, like
money. SMS for a password reset is an example of 1FA -- your ability
to receive SMS messages at the required phone number becomes the sole
authentication factor needed to access the account.

If the adversary has captured your password -and- reprogrammed your
phone number, what makes you think they lack the wherewithal to have
captured the shared secret used to generate your TOTP code?

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin
bill at herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/