Council carried out SIM attacks in exchange for money.
An Alabama man has been given the maximum five-year prison sentence for taking over the X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Eric Council Jr. pleaded guilty to infiltrating the SEC's X account via SIM swapping conducted with the help of his co-conspirators, according to The Record.
He proceeded to post fraudulent information regarding the planned approval of cryptocurrency-containing exchange-traded funds, which resulted in a Bitcoin price spike, according to the Justice Department.
Such a development comes amid the persistent targeting of high-profile X accounts in cryptocurrency takeover scams.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
