Anita Davis's T-Mobile phone was cloned, racking up $3,151 in calls to Pakistan, Israel, and Africa. Security expert Robert Siciliano explains how attackers intercept SIM data to duplicate phones, especially older 2G devices. Check your statements weekly and dispute charges fast.
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In tonight's Don't Waste Your Money report, we have a warning about a crime involving cell phones. You don't have to lose your phone or have it stolen to have someone rip it off. Hello? Anita Davis had never seen anything like it. A monthly cell phone bill not in the hundreds of dollars, but thousands.
$3,151 worth of calls. In one month? One month.
$3,000 worth of calls to countries like Pakistan, Israel, Jordan, Africa. Anita says she immediately called T-Mobile where she She's been a customer for 6 years.
I told them I don't know anyone in these countries. I don't know anyone outside the United States. They told me that I had to directly dial these numbers from my cell phone and I needed to make a payment arrangement or else they were going to send my bill to collections.
But it turns out Anita's phone had been hacked or cloned.
Cloning is when hackers, they get your SIM card information by scanning the airwaves and cloning your phone.
I talked about it by Skype with McAfee internet security consultant Robert Siciliano. Give me an idea of how easily this can happen to somebody.
Cloning can happen to your mobile phone anytime, anywhere that you're using your phone. The bad guy simply uses an interceptor hardware and software to record your SIM card and they can have a— they can make a phone exactly like yours.
And then you, like Anita, get charged for the calls. Siciliano says older phones on 2G networks are most at risk for cloning or hacking, but no one's completely immune.
Cloning actually happened to my phone. I had been in San Diego and it was believed that the phone was cloned by Mexicans who were able to get the signal from over the border.
He fought the charges and they were dropped. And that's ultimately what T-Mobile did for Anita as well. That is why it is so very important not just to check your statement monthly, like if you get it in the mail, but Siciliano says check it online every week to be sure that no one has hijacked your number and is racking up charges. The earlier you catch those, the better chance you have of fighting Fighting it.
