T-Mobile hacked in massive Chinese breach of telecom networks, WSJ reports

[Tumbulu]

2. AT&T was hacked into last summer

and since then many customers ( including me) have experienced a type of Identity Theft called a “Port out Hijack” . This is where fraudsters take the phone number that you use to authenticate your bank accounts, etc. It took 13 days for AT&T to get my phone number back from the hackers. I was able to stop about $200,000 in loans that they were trying to take out in my name. Who knows yet what I did not catch? I had to change/ close every bank account, credit card, email account, all passwords, etc. 13 days of terror. I am far from over it. The hackers demanded a police report before they would return my number from Cricket to AT&T. Which required me to drive to our county jail to pick up the copy.

Here is a link to a good article about this sort of hack. Whoever your phone carrier is- put a special additional lock - called a “port lock” on your phone. So that this does not happen to you. Luckily I still had a land line to use. But without any credit cards ( all cancelled to protect from the fraudulent loans) how could I have even bought a new phone anyway? I had cash on hand for a tank of gas and some groceries.

I got the phone back on Election Day…….. yikes, the hell just kept going.

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-technology/ap-whats-worse-than-thieves-hacking-into-your-bank-account-when-they-steal-your-phone-number-too/