I Tested a "Secure Phone"...here's what I learned

0:00 It's a service used by banks, law firms, universities, and crypto investors to add serious protection to their mobile devices. But is it good for the rest of us? And this week I'm purchasing and testing Efani, a secure SIM provider that claims to protect you against the most common kind of mobile hack. I'm going to give you a quick look at how it works, whether or not it's easy to set up and why I do, or in some cases don't recommend using them. As I prepare to travel back to the US for some meetings, I went onto the Efani website to purchase an eSIM. They do offer to ship physical SIM cards if you need it, but if you've never set up an eSIM before, it's a lot easier than you might imagine. And most newer phones allow for eSIM. So anyway, I paid for my eSIM and scheduled a quick call with their activation manager. It

0:47 is possible to port over your existing phone number, but since I'm just creating a new one for this short trip to the US, the process is a little bit easier. After giving over my phone's IMEI number, which is kind of like a phone ID number and it's required to activate any eSIM, I was sent a QR code to scan that basically sets up the phone to use immediately. I mean, all in all, it took me about 10 minutes to go from purchasing this new phone plan to making and receiving phone calls with the new number. And to be clear, Efani does not have its own mobile network. They're using I think only AT&T right now. It used to be a choice between either AT&T or Verizon Networks, but you're paying a premium above what you'd pay as like a normal AT&T customer. So what do you get for that premium? Well, according to Efani,

1:33 one of the major benefits is the privacy that comes from not giving your information to these big telecom companies who are known to sell it off to anyone who's willing to pay for it. So while I was in the US, I decided to put that to the test by visiting a local AT&T store. I asked a worker in the store to pull up my information for the phone number that I had, and all he could tell me was that it was a corporate account under the name Efani. So as far as I can tell, AT&T doesn't know my name, my date of birth, my address, and all the other personal information I would've needed to provide if I was their customer. Now beyond this benefit, it's really honestly hard to tell the difference between using Efani and any other mobile service provider. I had unlimited talk and text and data. I had hotspot, and I was even able to connect to a global network during one of my transit

2:20 stops in the Middle East. Most of the benefit that Efani does provide the kind of security that I don't see at least offered anywhere else, all happens behind the scenes. They block all SIM requests by default, which is one of the number one ways that phones get hacked, and then they utilize an 11 layer verification process to make any changes to the phone number. Even then, that can only be done after a 14 day cooling off. Now, I asked Efani representatives more details about this verification process because it is pretty vague, honestly. But they told me that it's proprietary for security reasons and that all they could say is that no hacking attempt has ever passed beyond just even the third layer of 11 layers. No Efani client has been SIM swapped and security measures are so effective that

3:08 they're able to offer a $5 million insurance plan. In other words, if you do get hacked as the result of a SIM swap while using Efani, your losses will be covered up to $5 million. So if security is a high priority for you and your phone is the access key to a lot of important data or even a lot of wealth, I can see incredible benefit to using a service like Efani. I had a great experience and not a single problem using my Efani phone service. And I do want to make sure that I provide a balanced review here. You are paying a premium for this kind of security. It's definitely not for everybody, especially if you're on a tight budget. And for those who are deep into the privacy world, I wouldn't necessarily consider this an anonymous SIM option. I mean, you can't pay with crypto and you are trusting Efani with some of your personal

3:56 information. Finally, Efani is primarily protecting against sSIM swaps here, which while this is the biggest threat for most people, it isn't the only mobile threat that high value targets face. If you're concerned about if fake tower attacks, SS7 or other man in the middle attacks, Efani has a new program in beta that offers different protection, but that's not what this SIM swap protection is. So if you're not a high value target or you have no clue what SS7 or fake tower attacks even means, then this is probably overkill for you. So that's my experience. I mean, if that feels like something you would benefit from, you can use this link where I've negotiated a special discount code for you to give them a try. There is no contract and I believe they offer a 60 day money back guarantee. Leave any questions below and I'm going to keep testing security products that I

4:43 find interesting so that you and I can both learn about them together.