The parent company of one of the biggest cell service providers in the US is becoming a validator on layer-2 scaling network Polygon (MATIC). In a new company announcement, Deutsche Telekom, the conglomerate that owns telecommunications giant T-Mobile, says it will begin validating nodes for Polygon, just like it’s been doing for other prominent crypto […]
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While members of the crypto community are doubtful the lawsuit against Coinbase will be successful, it has sparked a conversation about the issues with SMS 2FA.
The crypto community is debating whether SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) should ever be used for account security following news that a Coinbase customer is suing the cryptocurrency exchange for $96,000.
On Mar. 6 Jared Ferguson filed a lawsuit against Coinbase in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming he lost “90% of his life savings” after funds were withdrawn from his account by identity thieves and Coinbase had refused to reimburse him.
Ferguson is said to have fallen prey to a type of identity theft known as “SIM swapping,” which allows fraudsters to gain control of a phone number by tricking the telecom provider into linking the number to their own SIM card.
This allows them to bypass any SMS 2FA on an account, and in this situation allegedly allowed them to confirm the withdrawal of $96,000 from Ferguson's Coinbase account.
Ferguson claimed he lost service after his phone was hacked on May 9, and noticed the funds had been taken from his Coinbase account after getting a new sim card and restoring his service as per instructions from his service provider T-Mobile.
T-Mobile was previously sued by a SIM-swapping victim in February 2021 following the theft of approximately $450,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC).
Coinbase denied any responsibility for the hack of Ferguson’s account, telling him in an email that he is “responsible for the security of your e-mail, your passwords, your 2FA codes, and your devices.”
Related: Hacker returns stolen funds to Tender.fi, gets $97K bounty reward
Members of the crypto community were generally doubtful that Ferguson’s lawsuit would be successful, noting that Coinbase encourages the use of authenticator apps for 2FA rather than SMS and describes the latter as the “least secure” form of authentication.
I'm guessing his password was compromised because it was used on other sites, one of which got breached. Also, Coinbase encourages Authenticator app for 2FA by labeling it "secure" and SMS as "moderately secure".
— Dave Ferguson (@_sc0rn) March 7, 2023
Some Reddit users discussing the lawsuit in a post titled “Never Use SMS 2FA” went as far as suggesting SMS 2FA should be banned, but noted that it was the only authentication option available for many services, as one user said:
“Unfortunately a lot of services I use don’t offer Authenticator 2FA yet. But I definitely think the SMS approach has proven to be unsafe and should be banned.”
Blockchain security firm CertiK warned of the dangers of using SMS 2FA in September, with its security expert Jesse Leclere telling Cointelegraph that “SMS 2FA is better than nothing, but it is the most vulnerable form of 2FA currently in use.”
Leclere said dedicated authenticator apps like Google Authenticator or Duo offer nearly all the convenience of using SMS 2FA while removing the risk of SIM swapping.
Reddit users shared similar advice but added authenticator apps on phones also make that device a single point of failure and recommended the use of separate hardware authentication devices.
The parent company of mobile communications giant T-Mobile says it’s launching an Ethereum (ETH) staking validator as part of its support for the world’s second-largest blockchain by market cap. According to a new press release, Deutsche Telekom is supporting Ethereum’s transition from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism into a proof-of-stake one by operating validator nodes through […]
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T-Mobile is teaming up with Helium (HNT) founders Nova Labs to assist in the launch of a new 5G mobile service allowing users to earn cryptocurrency. Nova Labs and T-Mobile have signed a multi-year agreement as the decentralized wireless communications company plans to launch Helium Mobile to expand services on the Helium 5G network, which […]
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The hacker purportedly plans to sell a subset of their stolen information 6 BTC ($286,000).
U.S. telecom giant T-Mobile is looking into an alleged massive data breach that may have compromised more than 100 million users.
According to Vice's Motherboard, T-Mobile is investigating an alleged data breach claimed by the author of the post on an underground forum. The Aug. 15 report says the hacker claims to have obtained data on more than 100 million customers from T-Mobile servers.
The seller is asking for 6 BTC — approximately $287,000 at current prices, in exchange for some of the data.
Motherboard has seen samples of the data which include social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers and driver license information.
The seller told the outlet that they are privately selling most of the data at the moment, but will hand over a subset of the data containing 30 million social security numbers and driver licenses for the BTC ransom.
Referring to T-Mobile's alert and potential response to the breach, the hacker said “I think they already found out because we lost access to the backdoored servers.”
A T-Mobile spokesperson said that the company is “aware of claims made in an underground forum” and is "actively investigating their validity” adding: “We do not have any additional information to share at this time.”
Related: Ledger users threaten legal action after hacker dumps personal data
It is not the first time T-Mobile has been at the center of a cyber-security scandal. In February, the mobile carrier was sued by a victim who lost $450,000 in Bitcoin in a SIM-swap attack.
A SIM-swap attack occurs when the victim’s cell phone number is stolen. This can then be used to hijack the victim's online financial and social media accounts by intercepting automated messages or phone calls that are used for two-factor authentication security measures.
In this case, the victim Calvin Cheng accused T-Mobile of failing to implement adequate security policies to prevent unauthorized access to its customers' accounts.
T-Mobile was also sued in July 2020 by the CEO of a crypto firm over a series of SIM-swaps that resulted in the loss of $8.7 million worth of digital assets.
In April this year, hardware wallet manufacturer, Ledger, faced a class-action lawsuit regarding the major data breach that saw the personal data of 270,000 customers stolen between April and June 2020.
