The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has adopted rules to address two fraudulent practices that “bad actors use to take control of consumers’ cell phone accounts and wreak havoc on people’s financial and digital lives without ever gaining physical control of the consumer’s phone.”

In its recent Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released November 16, 2023, the Commission first addressed the practice where bad actors are able to swap a consumer’s subscriber identity module (“SIM”) card to a wireless device associated with a different SIM (i.e., SIM card swap fraud). The agency also acted on wireless number porting fraud, where bad actors impersonate a customer and convince the provider to port the real customer’s telephone number to a new wireless provider and a device that the bad actor controls (i.e., port-out fraud).