SEC hacker once Googled ‘if I am being investigated by the FBI’

Eric Council Jr., the SIM swap hacker who helped compromise the Securities and Exchange Commission’s X relationship past year, made $50,000 performing akin attacks and adjacent searched however to archer if the FBI is investigating him, caller filings show.

The caller filing was portion of the prosecutor’s petition to sentence him to 2 years successful prison implicit his relation successful the hack, which saw the SEC X relationship people a mendacious announcement that a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded money was approved, shaking up the markets. 

Council searched: “How tin I cognize for definite if I americium being investigated by the FBI” and “How agelong does it instrumentality to delete Telegram account,” US prosecutors discovered pursuing a hunt warrant of his house, car and devices past June, according to a May 12 tribunal filing.

While Council’s Telegram chats were acceptable up to beryllium removed aft 2 weeks, US prosecutors inactive recovered chats of Council discussing SIM swaps with others believed to beryllium located overseas.

Council besides admitted to instrumentality enforcement that helium received astir $50,000 for performing SIM swaps for clients betwixt January to June 2024. He advertised himself arsenic a SIM swapping adept connected Telegram nether the username easymunny, offering services for outgo betwixt $1,200 and $1,500.

How Eric Council Jr. pulled the hack off, past got caught

Council executed the SIM swap by creating fake individuality documents to specifically impersonate idiosyncratic that his co-conspirators identified arsenic having entree to the SEC’s X account.

These fake documents were past utilized to instrumentality a unit idiosyncratic astatine telecommunications steadfast AT&T into reassigning the victim’s telephone fig to Council’s SIM card. 

Council wrong an AT&T Store connected Jan. 9, 2024. Source: US Government

Council had to stock the past 4 digits of the victim’s Social Security fig and driver’s licence to effectuate the SIM swap.

He past bought a caller iPhone from an Alabama Apple store, inserted the caller SIM and shared the entree codes to the SEC’s X relationship with his co-conspirators, who aboriginal posted the fake quality astir the spot Bitcoin ETFs connected Jan. 9. The Bitcoin products received authoritative support the pursuing day.

Council received outgo for the SEC SIM swap successful Bitcoin (BTC) and different cryptocurrencies, the prosecutors said.

However, Council’s luck ran retired connected June 12, 2024, erstwhile surveillance agents observed him attempting to execute a SIM swap astatine an Apple store, impersonating different victim.

Law enforcement executed a hunt warrant six days aboriginal and recovered respective pieces of circumstantial evidence, including templates for fake recognition cards connected his laptop.

Two fake ID documents recovered from Council’s Telegram account. Source: US Government

He pleaded blameworthy connected Feb. 10, aft a national expansive assemblage returned an indictment charging him with Conspiracy to Commit Aggravated Identity Theft and Access Device Fraud last October.

Related: SEC Chair: Blockchain 'holds promise' of caller kinds of marketplace activity

The fake station accumulated implicit 1 cardinal views earlier the SEC confirmed it had been hacked astir 15 minutes later.

The 2 announcements resulted successful Bitcoin’s terms initially rising $1,000 earlier abruptly falling astir $2,000 soon after, wiping retired tens of millions of dollars worthy of marketplace positions.

The information squad astatine X confirmed that the SEC didn’t person two-factor authentication installed connected its X relationship astatine the clip of the incident. The SEC claimed it initially had 2FA enabled but was erroneously removed by X Support pursuing a petition by an SEC unit member.

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