YouTube Transcript:
The Phone Setting You Must Turn "on" TODAY!! (here's how to do it)

unfortunately it's never been more
important than it is right now today to
protect believe it or not the phone
number for your smartphone because
unfortunately hackers are getting access
to our phone numbers they're able to
pretend that they're us and they're
stealing tens of thousands of dollars if
not hundreds of thousands of dollars
from unsuspecting victims I don't want
to see that happen to you so so let's
jump in we'll talk about what the scam
is and how you can protect yourself from
it okay let's jump to Consumer Reports
and they they have an article titled
prevent Sim swapping attacks so prevent
an attacker from stealing your Mobile
account information this will stop them
from receiving calls text and data tied
to your phone which can be used to gain
access to personal and financial
accounts so what's happening many of the
important websites the financial
institutions that we're working with now
require something called two-factor
authentication right so we we put in our
username we put in our password and then
that institution sends us a text and the
scam used to be they would try the
scammers would try to to fool you into
giving them that that number that was
texted to you but you know what they
found it was a lot easier to just steal
your phone number and then that that
code gets sent directly to them and it
it sounds impossible to happen but yet
it's happening each and every day and
it's costing people tens of thousands
hundreds of thousands of dollars so how
do we protect ourself right this
multiactor
authentication was supposed to be the
protection for us so first off how are
these scammers getting our phone number
the first one unfortunately sometimes
there's insiders at the phone compy
that is is porting your number to
somebody else's phone and unfortunately
there's not much you and I can do uh
about that the way you'll know if your
phone number's been P ported to somebody
else you'll look at your cell phone
you'll say you know why do I have no
sell service and and those you know how
many bars do you have do you have four
bars do you have five bars you'll have
zero bars and that is your warning so
that's one way that scammers get get
your phone number but the other way
is is through through things that we can
do to make it harder for them to get
access to our phone number let's go
through this consumer report and see
what they recommend they they say first
to set a pin or a passcode and security
question with your cell provider so if
somebody calls a scammer calls and
pretends to be you and now remember with
artificial intelligence they can sound
just like you and they do all of this
social engineering they look at your
Facebook profile to maybe see where you
went to high school and when you
graduated from college so be sure with
these security uh questions that you
pick something that people can't easily
get off of your social media profile or
through other sources right maybe the
the first name of your dog when you're
five years old that would not be
anywhere in social media something like
that okay so the first thing they do
Consumer Reports recommends and there's
three of them here the first one is to
set a pin or a passcode and security
question with your cell provider so the
let's go through the the various uh
carriers they they talk about four
carriers here let's start with Verizon
it's one of the more common cell phone
providers uh self-service providers
Verizon lets you set up a number lock to
protect your mobile number from an
unauthorized transfer that's what we're
talking about you can set this up by
your phone through the app or on the
website or you can call customer service
at 61 at star 611 and request a number
lock on your phone or on your app you
can go to settings um number lock and
select the number you want to lock or
you can go to their website look up
number lock okay AT&T they call it
managing extra security on your settings
and um it may require you to enter your
password your passcode which I would
hope that it would uh and you can sign
in to manage your wireless account by
going to my AT&T and your profile you
log in then it's my linked account
manage extra security account and then
turn on extra security for T-Mobile
account takeover protection you can add
it to your account they don't say how to
do that I can tell you I know people
have gone physically to the T-Mobile uh
store to set this up and then Google
file lets you set up a number lock to
protect your number from unauthorized
transfer Consumer Report says the follow
Google's instructions okay so that was
number one is to set up this security
question set up this this passcode
number two is consider moving away from
text message based multiactor
authentication we always have to try to
stay one step ahead of these F uh these
scammers these bad guys and so one thing
we can do is instead of having the
service provider send you a code by text
they now make authentication apps um and
you can find these on on the uh App
Store I know Google has one it's called
authenticator and then oftentimes the
password managers this is not sponsored
by a password manager but companies like
one pass companies like uh last pass um
and not only is a password manager
important for this authentication these
authenticator apps tend to be free uh
it's also important when you switch your
cell phones if you upgrade to a new
phone make sure you know how you're
going to pass that authentication app
over with all of these authentication
protocols that you've set up uh
otherwise it can be difficult me a
couple I made that mistake and I was in
some pain for a couple weeks until
everything got transferred over okay so
that's Consumer Reports number two is
consider using one of these uh
authentication apps and the third one is
to set up a pin code for your physical
SIM card in our in our smartphones we
can put on a passcode to protect that
physical card right now you know if if
you're at a coffee shop and you go to
use a restroom and you leave you forget
and you leave your cell phone on your
table somebody doesn't you know they
don't necessarily have to steal your
cell phone they can just steal that SIM
card and if you don't have this
protection once they have the SIM card
they and if they know more information
about you they're going to get these
text messages to you they'd need more
information because they'd need to be
able to log into your your bank but
maybe you know you you were recently on
your bank's website on your phone and
and they could get to it um so we need
to be careful because that physical SIM
card if you still have one I know uh the
latest Apple phones don't have a
physical SIM card anymore um so that's
the third one is to put this code on um
and they say you know anybody with your
your sim card would need to enter this
pin often times you need to put in your
PIN code in order to to add protection
and they say don't try to guess it
because too many failed attempts can
lock you out of your own account and the
last one is to protect yourself to guard
yourself from fishing attempts we all
know what this is It's when scammers
send us texts it's when scammers send us
emails and in this case they're looking
for information that would help them
impersonate you to the bank or an
employee or another company in order to
be able to obtain personal information
on you so this is critical to protect
ourselves you've worked hard for your
money and unfortunately as we get older
we have we we become a bigger Target
because we're we're not as sharp as we
were in our 20s and 30s and and our bank
account balances are typically larger so
not only uh do we have a larger net
worth but it's important we think about
when we're going to retire and that's
why I made this video here why waiting
to 65 to retire might be a big mistake
I'll see you in that video byebye