Phone Spoofing / Sim Cloning

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

May the force be with you
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A friend sent me a text this morning. Only, it never arrived.
Instead, he received a response from my number stating this is not Bryan.
To which my friend said HAHA Funny, really though...
Then he got a response telling him to Eff Off!

I neither sent or received any texts from this person. We spoke on the phone and then sent some texts back and forth. He sent me a screen shot showing the mystery texts bookending out real text conversation. They do not exist in my phone.

I went to my mobile carrier website, and I can see texts were sent to and received from my friend earlier today well before he and I tested it.

I have suspended my mobile account for now.

What might be happening? How can someone be sending and receiving using my number?
What is at risk? I have no mobile banking apps on my phone but I do get the 2FA via sms when I log in on PC so I am not doing that until I figure out what this could be and what the worse case scenario is.

Thanks in advance.
 
Unfortunately, spoofing phone numbers isn’t that difficult. Most of the time is spoofing for scam phone calls.
 
I’d go to a local office of the cell service provider and ask for a new SIM card.
 
murphey said:
Unfortunately, spoofing phone numbers isn’t that difficult. Most of the time is spoofing for scam phone calls.
Click to expand...
It's trivial to spoof outgoing caller id. It's much more difficult to receive someone else's calls. It's much more likely there was an error with the carrier, or someone in Brian's household playing a prank.

SIM cloning isn't impossible, but if you were intentional intercepting someone's texts, you wouldn't reply that you weren't that person.

I'd make certain it wasn't a prank and then call the carrier. If someone did clone the SIM, the carrier would be able to detect it.
 
Lindberg said:
It's trivial to spoof outgoing caller id. It's much more difficult to receive someone else's calls. It's much more likely there was an error with the carrier, or someone in Brian's household playing a prank.

SIM cloning isn't impossible, but if you were intentional intercepting someone's texts, you wouldn't reply that you weren't that person.

I'd make certain it wasn't a prank and then call the carrier. If someone did clone the SIM, the carrier would be able to detect it.
Click to expand...
I agree.
Assuming it wasn't the NSA, it was probably someone else in the household. More than once after an "upgrade" some of my settings changed, including ones that directed which phone or tablet was able to send or receive messages. For a while, until I looked at the settings and changed them, my wife was getting my texts on her ipad and I wasn't. I don't remember what changed, but it was fairly obvious what was wrong when I looked.
 
I called Verizon this morning and after almost 2 hours of explaining what happened to 10 different people, a guy came back and said "We had a glitch yesterday that impacted our customers and we are fielding many calls from people about this issue."

Just put a note on your website then.
I ended up suspending my account yesterday because I couldn't get a hold of anyone and it would have been great to go to their site and know they were aware of an issue like this.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
"We had a glitch yesterday that impacted our customers and we are fielding many calls from people about this issue."
Click to expand...


I hope you, being an IT guy, insisted on a little more detail about the "glitch." What data was compromised? Who may now have your personal data?
 
Had a similar situation once where messages were going all over and not to the the intended recipients. Was a bigger Verizion glitch.
 
And government politicos are worried about TikTok apps on employee cell phones, mea while Verizon is sending your texts to God knows where, lol.
 
Years ago someone called me several times in the middle of the night never saying a word. I *69 to get the number. Then, I get into work, and have several hang ups from the same number. I finally get the guy on the phone and he wants to meet sure I'm having an affair with his wife. He said my numbers were all over his wife's cell bill. My best guess is the phone company crossed our billing records. The phone company screwing up does not surprise me at all.
 
Mahneuvers said:
Years ago someone called me several times in the middle of the night never saying a word. I *69 to get the number. Then, I get into work, and have several hang ups from the same number. I finally get the guy on the phone and he wants to meet sure I'm having an affair with his wife. He said my numbers were all over his wife's cell bill. My best guess is the phone company crossed our billing records. The phone company screwing up does not surprise me at all.
Click to expand...

... but your online name is "Maneuvers" :eek::D:D:D
 
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