Hacker News Reader

SMS haters make it seem like there are tons of vans with antennas stealing banking credentials left and right, but somehow this just isn't happening.

The cyber criminals that want to log in to my Microsoft account just don't live anywhere near me and don't have fake companies with SS7 access.

View on HN

None of that is required to compromise SMS. A SIM swap is much easier to accomplish because the cellular carriers have historically had woefully insecure policies and their support agents could easily be socially engineered into moving your phone number to an attacker-owned SIM card.

I believe that this is only a USA problem.

In Europe I have never heard any stories about SIM swaps, so I do not believe that they have high chances of success, like it is said to happen in USA.

Therefore, at least here I find SMS as a 2FA more convenient than the alternatives and I believe that it is secure enough for most uses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com