Israeli Startup Unibeam Uses SIM Tech to Combat Identity Theft

With identity theft on the rise worldwide, especially through sophisticated SIM swapping schemes, Israeli startup Unibeam is revolutionizing how we secure our digital lives. By turning the humble SIM card into a robust tool for identity verification, Unibeam is offering a bold, hardware-based defense against one of the fastest-growing forms of cyber fraud.

SIM swapping occurs when attackers convince mobile carriers to transfer a user’s phone number to a SIM card under their control. This breach gives them access to sensitive information bank accounts, email, even crypto wallets by intercepting two-factor authentication codes and calls.

Unibeam’s technology tackles this problem at the root. Rather than relying on passwords, behavior tracking, or vulnerable one-time codes, it leverages the secure chip embedded in every SIM and eSIM. The result is deterministic identity verification a process that verifies ownership by linking the SIM card ID, device ID, and phone number to a single, irrefutable identity.

This groundbreaking approach works seamlessly with both physical SIM cards and modern eSIMs, and doesn’t require any apps or user input. As Unibeam’s founder and CEO Ran Ben-David puts it, “We’ve built Unibeam to be invisible to the user and invulnerable to attackers.”

Backed by $6 million in seed funding led by NFX and AnD Ventures, Unibeam is already gaining international attention. Gigi Levy-Weiss, founding partner at NFX, praised the company for “redefining” authentication. “With AI making it alarmingly easy to impersonate people online, traditional methods are no longer enough,” he said. “Unibeam’s solution is virtually impossible to spoof and exactly what we need in a world flooded with deepfakes and deception.”

The simplicity of Unibeam’s system is also part of its brilliance. There’s no software to install or complex user experience to navigate. It’s frictionless, and it works even on basic mobile phones and connected devices making it a globally scalable solution, especially in regions where smartphone access may be limited.

Unibeam represents not just another cybersecurity innovation, but a distinctly Israeli approach to solving high-stakes global challenges: bold, clever, and rooted in real-world applications.

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