California police have arrested a college student who is suspected of stealing $5 million in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using a method known as “SIM hacking.”
According to Motherboard, 20-year-old Boston College student Joel Ortiz was accused of hacking more than 40 phone numbers with the help of several accomplices. Ortiz and his accomplices targeted people involved in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies as victims - they managed to hack several accounts of cryptocurrency investors and people who attended the Consensus conference in New York in May.
According to the publication, the attack consists of deceiving the security system of a telephone operator, which allows replacing the victim’s phone number with a SIM card controlled by the attacker. After this, scammers use the victims’ numbers to reset passwords and gain access to their personal accounts or cryptocurrency accounts.
In some cases, scammers can even bypass two-factor authentication in this way. According to a Motherboard report, one Consensus conference attendee lost more than $1.5 million in the attack.
“According to court documents, Ortiz gained control of the entrepreneur's cell phone number and used it to reset his Gmail password, which helped him gain access to the victim's cryptocurrency account.”
According to ejinsight.com
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