Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin



There are services that have safeguards in place against sim swapping, coincidentally one of them is Fi: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9834243?hl=en


While I'm sure that Fi and Google Voice are better than almost any other carrier based SMS security, this does nothing to convince me to ever use SMS 2FA.

"Your Fi number is tied to your Google Account." -- I'm sure you've seen cases of people's google accounts being randomly locked for no reason. Now you lose access to make a call too!

The last thing I'd ever trust security to is SMS. Lots of good technical details here:

https://lucky225.medium.com/its-time-to-stop-using-sms-for-a...


No matter what cellular service you use, you run a risk of being flagged as a false positive for fraud locks (irrespective of SIM swaps).

If a SIM swap scam is happening and your account is locked, it is incredibly unlikely they'll be able to swap it out.


Apparently the safeguards consist of using a non-SMS method of 2FA. Maybe just do that in the other case too.


SMS 2fa is still multiple times more secure than no 2fa at all though.


I sort of disagree. With social engineering, it could be easier to reset someone's password with a SIM swap than traditional means. For many years, PayPal refused to do true 2FA and I cringed at having to choose between no 2FA or SMS-based. Phone numbers are much easier to source through public records than many people realize. As someone who has had the same primary cell phone number since I was a teenager, I’m honestly shocked it isn’t in more places (I’ve taken great pains to limit it getting out, but I’m still shocked). That scares me enough to almost get a second number, but that’s such a pain in the ass and not a great solution.


That's not really on the table though. We are not talking about your local tech illiterate bank here. We are talking about securing your Google account which is likely used to SSO authenticate with many other accounts.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: