ICCID — Integrated Circuit Card Identifier
Was ist ICCID?
Dieser Eintrag liegt derzeit nur auf Englisch vor.
An ICCID (Integrated Circuit Card Identifier) is the serial number of a SIM card itself — a 19-to-20-digit number engraved on the card and readable by the device — identifying one specific physical (or eSIM-profile) card, not the subscriber or the phone number. Networks use it internally to manage SIM inventory, and it appears in number-intelligence and IoT workflows as the card-level complement to the IMSI (subscriber identity) and the MSISDN (dialable phone number): a SIM swap keeps the subscriber and number but changes the ICCID.
More detail
An ICCID is structured as an industry code (89 for telecom), a country code, an issuer identifier, an individual account number, and a final check digit, making it globally unique per card — unlike an IMSI, which identifies a subscriber and can move from card to card at the carrier's discretion.
SIM-swap detection relies on this distinction: a recent ICCID change on a line means the physical card changed while the MSISDN stayed the same, which is the exact signal a SIM swap check weighs before a one-time passcode goes out or a sensitive action is approved.
In IoT and messaging fleet management, the ICCID is the practical identifier for tracking which physical card is in which device across thousands of deployed units, since it stays constant for a given card even when the carrier reassigns the phone number.
Häufige Fragen
- What's the difference between an ICCID, an IMSI, and an MSISDN?
- The ICCID identifies the SIM card itself; the IMSI identifies the subscriber to the network; the MSISDN is the dialable phone number. A carrier maps one MSISDN and one IMSI to a given ICCID, and a SIM swap changes only the ICCID while the other two stay the same.
- Why do SIM-swap fraud checks care about the ICCID?
- Because a SIM swap is precisely an ICCID change — the attacker's new card gets the same subscriber identity and number assigned to it. Detecting a recent card-level change before sending an SMS one-time passcode adds a fraud signal on top of the passcode itself.
See also
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