Giving up your personal phone number may lead to data leakage

Giving up your personal phone number risks losing your personal data. This was reported by How-To Geek.

Media journalists described the procedure for users who planned to give up their personal phone number in favor of a new one. They strongly recommended that before the final transition to a new number, you disconnect all services from the old one - banking applications, social networks, etc.

The authors cited a 2021 Princeton University study: for the sake of the experiment, scientists checked 259 numbers available to new subscribers from two major American operators. It turned out that 171 of them remained associated with the accounts of the previous owners on popular sites. Another 100 numbers appeared in leaks along with credentials.

The material states that if an unknown person gets a phone number with accounts linked to it, he will gain full access to them - he will be able to enter data or change the password. Thus, in instant messengers and social networks, the phone number serves as an account identifier.

How-To Geek experts also advised setting up double protection for your Internet accounts. For example, use an authenticator application, an access key, or a hardware security key.