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    By situation · 6 tips

    Phone lost or account hacked

    The order to follow when your phone is lost, and how to protect your accounts afterward.

    1 Right away

    Account and information security

    When your phone is lost, follow this order: report the SIM card lost, lock the phone remotely, change passwords, call the police, freeze your bank cards

    The order matters more than speed. First report the SIM card lost, which cuts off the lifeline of verification codes. Next lock the phone remotely, then use a computer to change your email and payment passwords, then call the police and get a receipt, and finally freeze your bank cards if needed. If you don't have your phone, you can borrow someone else's to call the carrier's customer service and report the loss.

    • Top value
    • Evidence C
    • Saves money

    2 Protecting yourself afterward

    Account and information security

    Turn on two-step verification for your email, payment and social accounts, and prefer a confirmation pop-up on your phone over a text-message code

    Two-step verification means that when you sign in, besides the password you confirm a second time that it is really you. Tapping "yes" on a pop-up on your phone blocks more than 90% of phishing-based account takeovers. The older method of answering questions like "where did you last sign in" or "what is your backup email" stops only about 10% of them.

    • Top value
    • Evidence A
    • Saves money
    Account and information security

    Give your email its own password, and don't reuse it on any website

    A password stolen from another website gets used to log straight into your email. Once someone is in your email, every account that can reset its password by email goes down with it. So give your email its own password and use it nowhere else.

    • High value
    • Evidence C
    • Saves money
    Account and information security

    Set a lock-screen passcode on your phone and a PIN on the SIM card

    The SIM card is the small card inside your phone, and text-message codes arrive through it. If you lose your phone, whoever finds it can pull this card out, put it in another phone to receive the codes, and then reset your accounts one by one. If you set a PIN on the card, then once the card is moved to another phone it asks for this code as soon as the phone starts, and that route is closed.

    • Top value
    • Evidence C
    • Saves money
    Account and information security

    Check your accounts' signed-in devices and authorized apps every so often, and remove the ones you don't use

    "Signed-in devices" are the phones and computers that can still use your account right now. If the list shows a device you don't recognize, or software you stopped using long ago is still connected to your account, change the password first, then sign out of all devices. In your email, also check for any automatic forwarding you didn't set up.

    • Moderate value
    • Evidence C
    • Saves money
    Account and information security

    Before you change your phone number or stop using your old one, move your bank, payment and social accounts to the new number first, and don't just let the old one run up unpaid bills until it is cut off

    After a phone number is canceled, the carrier can reissue it to someone else after as little as 90 days. Accounts you haven't re-linked are still tied to this number, so verification codes go to the new owner's phone, and he may use a code to log in to your account. So before you switch numbers, change the number linked to your accounts, and the number your bank has on file, to the new one.

    • Moderate value
    • Evidence C
    • Saves money

    Related

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