Telefónica Collaborates with Chainlink to Mitigate “SIM Card Swap Attacks”
Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica announced a partnership with decentralized oracle provider Chainlink to enhance the security of smart contracts and prevent hacking and vulnerabilities related to Web3, including SIM card swap attacks.
Telefónica is a telecommunications company based in Spain and is the fifth-largest fixed-line and mobile operator globally. It primarily offers landline and mobile communication services in Europe and Latin America.
Telefónica and Chainlink Labs have announced a strategic alliance to establish secure connections between Web3 smart contracts and other GSMA open gateway APIs.
GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) is an industrial trade association founded in 1995 and sponsored by mobile network operators and related companies. Its aim is to promote common standards and construction of the GSM mobile phone system. Currently, it consists of more than 220 countries and nearly 800 mobile operators.
By integrating with Chainlink, Telefónica can not only enhance transaction security but also make API requests through smart contracts, introducing an additional layer of security to blockchain transactions and ensuring that SIM cards are not unauthorizedly tampered with. Using Chainlink’s integration with GSMA open gateway APIs, it can also mitigate risks beyond transaction security and address the issues of two-factor authentication (2FA) and fraud detection in Web3 dApps and DeFi services. Telefónica’s subsidiary Vivo (Telefonica Brazil) will be the first to commercialize this in Brazil.
SIM card swap attacks are hacking tools based on identity theft and impersonation of financial account holders. Such scams are rampant in the Web3 industry, as seen in the false tweets posted by the SEC prior to approving a Bitcoin spot ETF and the $400 million theft from FTX exchange in 2022, both associated with SIM card swap attacks.
Chainlink
SIM card swap attacks
Telefónica
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