[Jason Gin] wanted to reuse the SIM card that came with a ZTE WF721 wireless ... Unfortunately, the terminal has no function to change the PIN and none of the defaults he tried seemed to work.

A PUK code is required if a GSM SIM card was locked after entering the wrong PIN code three times in a row. Entering a wrong PUK code ten times in a row disables the SIM card permanently.

Cricket sells its SIM cards through several retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, and Target. To activate one of these SIMs ...

Now once they get these SIM cards? Crypto, gone. Bank account, drained. Emails, deleted. All that,” she says. Lex says that even SIM protections like PIN codes can’t fully protect victims.