Expert advises mobile phone users to lock sim cards to prevent hacking

A Software developer, Isah Kanuri, has advised mobile phone users to lock their sim cards with a Personal Identification Number (PIN) code to prevent hacking.

Kanuri, who is the CEO of CompuHub, a software firm into internet security, gave the advice on Tuesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

“ In this age, all a fraudulent hacker needs to do is to get hold of the sim card, and to defend against this type of cyber attack, one should lock the SIM card with a pin number.

“ Even with the best protection on your smartphone, someone could simply remove your SIM card which holds your phone number, security data, billing information, and other bits of data and place it in their device to carry out a fraudulent action.

‘ ‘A lot people are open to cyber attack because most times they only lock their phones without locking their sim cards.

“ Most often people with only limited security features are prone to cyber attacks and it is usually because they just locked their phones without locking their sim cards.

“ Cyber attacks can be carried out on an unlocked sim card at any place at any time once the hacker gets hold of your sim card,’’ he said.

Kanuri said the easiest way to protect cellular account is to call the service provider, asking them to lock the sim, while providing the user with the default pass-code of the sim.

He added that, from there, the user proceed to the handset’s prone settings, click on security and then set up sim card lock.

Kanuri stressed that this is necessary especially for the sim card used for payment transactions.

“ This steps will prevent impostors and fraudsters from accessing user’s data and will also be protected from digital fraud.

“ Once the user had been provided with default sim pass code, input when prompted to do so,  change the sim PIN to the four digit pin of choice; otherwise someone could guess the default,’’ he said.

Kanuri said that when the sim card has been secured with a PIN, if anyone removes that SIM and place it in another phone, the sim card will be useless without the PIN.

-NAN