#Restart service free with sim card hack verification#

Other accounts took weeks to recover, wrote the YouTube star, who didnвЂ™t respond to multiple requests for comment. вЂњI had been locked out of my own account though and it took hours on the phone to regain access.вЂќ

вЂњPayPal had been raided but luckily they managed to freeze the assets when they realized something was wrong,вЂќ he wrote.

The hacker tricked a Verizon employee intoВ rerouting Boogie2988вЂ™s phone number to the hackerвЂ™s phone, which allowed the hacker to take control of Boogie2988вЂ™s email, YouTube, social media, and even PayPal accounts. He isnвЂ™t the only prominent victim of such an attack: the popular YouTube host known as Boogie2988, known for his viral video rants under the name вЂњFrancis,вЂќ wrote on Medium last fall that a teenage hacker used a similar technique. They then posted a number of tweets to his account, including one endorsing Donald Trump for president.

#Restart service free with sim card hack verification#

вЂњIt was not due to passwords, they hacked my phone account itself.вЂќД«y calling and successfully changing my phoneвЂ™s SIM, the hacker bypassed two-factor verification which I have on all accounts.Д¬alling his phone company, hackers were able to impersonate McKesson, have his phone number assigned to a new SIM card under their control and use that to reset his Twitter password through text-based authentication, he wrote. вЂњI was hacked today: my Twitter account, two email addresses, & my phone,вЂќ wrote Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson on Twitter last June. Criminals who can trick or hack phone companies into letting them access legitimate customersвЂ™ accounts can use text-message-based password reset tools to gain access to private emails, social media, and even financial accounts. вЂњI was just overwhelmed and frustrated at the number of hours it took to deal with this.вЂќДЄnd while the fraudsters who targeted Tsamitis may have simply been looking to steal hardware, other victims of similar crimes have seen attackers also hijack other logins linked to their phone numbers. вЂњItвЂ™s just very frustrating, and the carrier didnвЂ™t really have an appropriate response or guidance as to steps I can take,вЂќ she says. Yet it was still easy for criminals armed with fake IDs to purchase new devices and charge them to her account, a problem that wasnвЂ™t resolved until she spent hours on the phone with her carrier and even visited one of the companyвЂ™s retail stores. When it comes to digital security, Tsamitis is about far as from an amateur as could be: SheвЂ™s a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, director of the schoolвЂ™s Information Networking Institute, and a founding director of CMUвЂ™s CyLab security and privacy institute.