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Comment by alsodumb | Hacker News Reader

I think switching to Google Fi seems to be the best option we have right now with respect to any sim swap attacks. Fi doesn’t have physical stores and it’s associated with my Google account which I can secure using non SMS based 2FA options. Unfortunately Fi is also a liability in the sense that Google can kill my account any time.

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Maybe you know something I don't, but switching to an entirely-virtual provider in response to a difficult-to-execute physical threat seems a bit misguided to me.

Google also has notoriously nonexistent customer service. It does not instill confidence that anyone should rely on them for something as critical as identity management. The threat of them fucking you over when you need their help far outweighs the threat of hackers and scammers.

(Virtual money was supposed to be more secure than physical coin. That experiment didn't work so well either.)

It doesn’t seem that difficult-to-execute if the attack is targeted. Google Fi is known to have pretty good customer service, unlike rest of the free Google products. Again, considering everything, I came to the conclusion that Fi is the best option for me right now. YMMV.

Google Fi’s implementation of verification also seems more robust and secure: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9834243?hl=en

I think no tech support is the only real defense against SIM swap.. Then you need other redundancies that are equally impervious to social attack to be able to withstand a lock out from one of them. Actual security is a real pain, pretending you have it while having a tech support that can bypass it isn't nearly as painful and gives the same sense of security until it is tested.

Ok, that's pretty funny. Neglect-as-a-service!

No customer service is the removal of that specific attack vector

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