Yes, you can add additional security onto your account - at least with Verizon. I highly encourage everyone to do so. Once enabled, you will need to present photo ID at a corporate Verizon store to allow your phone # to be transferred to a new carrier.
My wife got SIM jacked just a few weeks ago and we got extremely lucky that it didn't turn into a bigger problem. They did get a hold of her Venmo account, but fortunately it's not actually linked to our bank account (Venmo restricts the # of users that can link to a single bank account).
This doesn’t work because many SIM swaps are now done with stolen corporate credentials or bribed retail employees. They login to the corporate portal and check the box that says “I verified the customer’s ID” and proceed with the sim swap.
This only protects you from the old way where a scammer tries to convince well intentioned phone support or retail employees.
Thanks for the tip! I'm glad to see they've implemented this. Though I'm still very frustrated about how long it took for them to do anything about this problem.
Instructions: https://twitter.com/ramsey/status/1235227940054585344
My wife got SIM jacked just a few weeks ago and we got extremely lucky that it didn't turn into a bigger problem. They did get a hold of her Venmo account, but fortunately it's not actually linked to our bank account (Venmo restricts the # of users that can link to a single bank account).