Hacker Arrested For the Fake SEC Tweet That Caused a Bitcoin Price Spike (theverge.com)
(Thursday October 17, 2024 @11:30PM (msmash)
from the ticket-closed dept.)
- Reference: 0175273891
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/17/2044230/hacker-arrested-for-the-fake-sec-tweet-that-caused-a-bitcoin-price-spike
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272739/sec-fake-bitcoin-etf-tweet-fbi-arrest-eric-council
The FBI has [1]arrested an Alabama man who is accused of hacking the Securities and Exchange Commission's X account in January. From a report:
> The indictment alleges that 25-year-old Eric Council Jr. worked with co-conspirators to take control of the account and post a fake message from SEC Chair Gary Gensler about Bitcoin ETFs that caused the price of Bitcoin to jump by more than $1,000 momentarily.
>
> To carry out this scheme, Council is accused of creating a fake ID using the information belonging to the person in control of the SEC's X account. He then allegedly tricked AT&T into providing a SIM card with the victim's phone number and install it into a new iPhone he purchased. Finally, Council was able to gain control of the SEC's account using recovery authentication codes sent to the number, and later return the iPhone to the Apple Store where he'd bought it.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272739/sec-fake-bitcoin-etf-tweet-fbi-arrest-eric-council
> The indictment alleges that 25-year-old Eric Council Jr. worked with co-conspirators to take control of the account and post a fake message from SEC Chair Gary Gensler about Bitcoin ETFs that caused the price of Bitcoin to jump by more than $1,000 momentarily.
>
> To carry out this scheme, Council is accused of creating a fake ID using the information belonging to the person in control of the SEC's X account. He then allegedly tricked AT&T into providing a SIM card with the victim's phone number and install it into a new iPhone he purchased. Finally, Council was able to gain control of the SEC's account using recovery authentication codes sent to the number, and later return the iPhone to the Apple Store where he'd bought it.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272739/sec-fake-bitcoin-etf-tweet-fbi-arrest-eric-council
Just say no to services that use SMS (Score:3)
by luvirini ( 753157 )
for authentication. As this is a story we have seen so many times before and will see again.
Neat job (Score:2)
by JSG ( 82708 )
"and later return the iPhone to the Apple Store where he'd bought it."
Waste not, want not!
"that caused the price of Bitcoin to jump by more than $1,000 momentarily"
That's fast trading that is. I wonder how many BT were grabbed and flogged at that time to exploit the differential?
Yikes! (Score:2)
by dpille ( 547949 )
By less than 2%? Oh noes!
Good luck proving that guy was the source of the move. In my world we think of that as normal volativity.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler should have been fired (Score:2, Flamebait)
by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 )
Either Gensler knew that his own authentication was crap and did nothing about it or he didn't know and was negligent.
High risk low reward (Score:2)
by linuxguy ( 98493 )
Man, that swing was quite small percentage wise. He committed a high crime for super low pay. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
And if it doesn't convince you SMS codes are awful (Score:2)
You need to watch this: [1]https://youtu.be/wVyu7NB7W6Y [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/wVyu7NB7W6Y
Re: (Score:3)
AT&T bears responsibility for allowing a Sim jacking so easily.