IT ISSUE · IDENTITY AND ACCESS
Authenticator unavailable after changing phones
The phone change was the event. Re-registering was the step that got skipped while the old phone still worked.The phone change is the event. Re-registering the authenticator is the step that gets skipped, because on the day of the swap the old phone still worked and nothing looked urgent. It only becomes a problem the next time something asks for a code.
What you may notice
- The authenticator app is empty on the new phone.
- Codes arrive on a device you no longer have.
- A number was ported but the app didn't come with it.
- The recovery method points somewhere unavailable.
- One account moved across and others didn't.
Restore access without weakening the account
We confirm the request is authorised, review the registered methods for that user and the state of the account, and where we're permitted we look at a controlled way to re-register a method on the new device.
The verification step is the point, not an obstacle in front of it. Someone who has genuinely lost a phone and someone pretending to have lost one describe the situation identically, and the only difference available to us is what we can confirm independently. It is worth a few minutes of inconvenience to be the business that is hard to talk your way into.