Recycled U.S. Phone Numbers are Linked to Security Threats

A recent academic study identified lots of privacy and security risks associated with recycling mobile phone numbers that could be used to stage a range of attacks, such as account takeovers, phishing, and spam attacks. This can go as far as denial of service, as it discourages victims to sign up for online services that require a unique number. 

66% of the recycled phone numbers tested were found to be linked to previous owners’ online accounts at famous websites, potentially allowing account hijacking by simply retrieving the accounts associated with those numbers. 

According to the researcher, “An attacker can cycle through the available numbers shown on online number change interfaces and check if any of them are associated with online accounts of previous owners,” 

Simply put, an attacker can get the numbers and use them to reset t…

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