Hacker News Reader

> wants me to verify against a phone number I no longer have.

I had the same. There's a good chance someone else has that number now - add them on WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/etc by phone number, Google their number and try to find them, or call them.

In my case, I was able to recover the account by communicating with the new owner, and him quickly sending me the 2FA code he got from Google when I tried to log in.

View on HN

That would be a clever phishing technique if you know your target no longer owns the number associated with an account.

That's why it's so insane to consider it a safe 2FA source.

6 months. That's all it takes between the last time a user successfully used a phone number, and a new user getting assigned the same number with prepaid SIMs in Germany.

6 months is a damn short time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com