Man Who Hijacked SEC's X Account To Pump Bitcoin Faces Up To 5 Years In Prison (gizmodo.com) 14
Eric Council Jr. pleaded guilty to identity theft and access device fraud after hijacking the SEC's X account to falsely announce Bitcoin ETF approval. He was compensated in Bitcoin by co-conspirators, and while the Justice Department continues its investigation, Council faces up to five years in prison. Gizmodo reports: According to the Justice Department, Council accessed the SEC's account using an attack called SIM swapping, in which a perpetrator uses social engineering to trick a phone carrier's customer service representatives into transferring an individual's phone number to a new device. Basically, they call into a support line and use pieces of personal information about a victim they have gathered online to convince the representative they are the person they are targeting. Once perpetrators take the number and can begin receiving text messages, they are able to reset the passwords of accounts on services like X. It is not really a "hack" in the traditional sense that they are not finding flaws in software but rather exploiting human trust.
Unfortunately for individuals like Council, all Bitcoin transactions are logged on a blockchain for anyone to see, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for investigators to find. If he did make out with a lot of crypto, it would be hard to keep it hidden forever. Council allegedly did not post the message himself to the SEC's X account, but conducted the SIM swap and left the rest of the work to his co-conspirators who compensated Council in the form of, of course, Bitcoin. The price of the cryptocurrency rose by $1,000 after the fake announcement, according to the Justice Department, and fell by $2,000 after the SEC issued a correction. That could have led to a big windfall depending on how much Bitcoin the perpetrators held at the time.
Unfortunately for individuals like Council, all Bitcoin transactions are logged on a blockchain for anyone to see, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for investigators to find. If he did make out with a lot of crypto, it would be hard to keep it hidden forever. Council allegedly did not post the message himself to the SEC's X account, but conducted the SIM swap and left the rest of the work to his co-conspirators who compensated Council in the form of, of course, Bitcoin. The price of the cryptocurrency rose by $1,000 after the fake announcement, according to the Justice Department, and fell by $2,000 after the SEC issued a correction. That could have led to a big windfall depending on how much Bitcoin the perpetrators held at the time.
Elona Musk will release him (Score:1)
And get him to work for the DGE.
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking of Musk, when is he going to be prosecuted for all his pump-and-dump scams?
Re: (Score:2)
Elon Musk FAP
When you get done you can explain to us how Elon is god even though he runs Tesla and EVs are woke liberal bullshit
Re: (Score:2)
TDS? Why are you bringing the ability to believe el Bunko into this? And the ability to believe Elmo is just as stupid.
The irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Eric Council Jr. uses government resources to promote his cryptocurrency = five years in jail.
Donald Trump uses government resources to promote his own cryptocurrency = he's hundreds of millions of dollars richer. [reuters.com]
Moral of the story: Our government doesn't like competition.
Re: (Score:2)
More accurately, el Bunko's government does not like competition.
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From your link:
The meme coin, known as $Trump, was launched by the president on Jan. 17 and quickly surged, reaching a peak of over $14.5 billion in overall market value by Jan. 19, the day before his inauguration. It has since slumped by two-thirds.
Which government resources do you claim that Trump used to promote his meme coin before he was inaugurated?
Give this man a job (Score:2)
How Much Did He Make? (Score:2)
I suspect that something like this would earn him a princely sum in crypto.
What's you're price for 5 years in prison?