Category Archives: SIM Swapping

SIM swapping victim alleges T-Mobile failed to stop $20,000 cryptocurrency scam

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A Pennsylvania woman who lost the equivalent of $20,000 in cryptocurrency as part of a mobile fraud scheme says T-Mobile failed to protect her account in the face of a wave of similar incidents. Sima Kesler, in a complaint filed Wednesday in Pennsylvania Eastern District Court, alleges she was the victim of a May 2020 SIM swapping scheme, in which scammers convince a phone carrier to give them control of an individual user’s account. With control of a victim’s phone information, thieves can receive text messages and access unrelated accounts tied to the victim’s mobile number. In this case, Kesler says she stored roughly $20,000 in a Coinbase account connected to her T-Mobile subscription. Unknown fraudsters had tricked T-Mobile customer service personnel into handing over access to Kesler’s account, which they then used to deplete her Coinbase of virtually all cryptocurrency, according to the complaint. Kesler’s complaint alleges that she […]

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Crypto scammer who threatened victims’ families pleads guilty, faces 2-year minimum

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A plan to steal cryptocurrency and hard-to-find social media accounts has ended with one schemer set to spend at least two years in prison.  Eric Meiggs, a 23-year-old Massachusetts man, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to participating in a plan to steal social media account names and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Meiggs and a team of associates used SIM swapping, a practice in which scammers take control of victims’ phone numbers, to try to steal more than $530,000 in cryptocurrency from 10 people, DOJ said.  SIM swapping is the process by which attackers convince a victim’s phone carrier to transfer control of a phone number to an attacker, or group of scammers. From there, the intruders abuse access to that phone number to gather passwords, financial transactions or other sensitive data associated with that number. In recent years, thieves have prioritized […]

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Are You One of the 533M People Who Got Facebooked?

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Ne’er-do-wells leaked personal data — including phone numbers — for some 553 million Facebook users this week. Facebook says the data was collected before 2020 when it changed things to prevent such information from being scraped from profiles. To my mind, this just reinforces the need to remove mobile phone numbers from all of your online accounts wherever feasible. Meanwhile, if you’re a Facebook product user and want to learn if your data was leaked, there are easy ways to find out. Continue reading Are You One of the 533M People Who Got Facebooked?→

Can We Stop Pretending SMS Is Secure Now?

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SMS text messages were already the weakest link securing just about anything online, mainly because there are tens of thousands of people (many of them low-paid mobile store employees) who can be tricked or bribed into swapping control over a mobile phone number to someone else. Now we’re learning about an entire ecosystem of companies that anyone could use to silently intercept text messages intended for other mobile users. Continue reading Can We Stop Pretending SMS Is Secure Now?→

10 SIM-swapping hackers nabbed for targeting US celebrities

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By Waqas
Europol has announced arresting 10 hackers involved in large scale SIM-swapping attacks targeting high-profile celebrities in the United States.
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SIM-swapping gang busted for targeting ‘influencers, sports stars, musicians’

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International police say 10 suspects have been arrested for fraudulently accessing the phones of celebrities to steal about $100 million cryptocurrency as well as personal data throughout 2020. The sting included eight arrests in the United Kingdom as well as one in Malta and another in Belgium, according to Europol. The U.S. Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security and FBI were all involved in the operation, the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said. As of Wednesday morning, it was unclear who the victims were, but the NCA said they included “well-known influencers, sports stars, musicians, and their families.” Neither Europol nor the NCA named the suspects. Victims’ phones were targeted via SIM swapping, police said. Unlike a direct hack on a person’s device, SIM swapping — also known as SIM hijacking — typically involves a little help from other humans. Scammers often take over a person’s digital profile by deactivating […]

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Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter Target Resellers of Hacked Accounts

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Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter this week all took steps to crack down on users involved in trafficking hijacked user accounts across their platforms. The coordinated action seized hundreds of accounts the companies say have played a major role in facilitating the trade and often lucrative resale of compromised, highly sought-after usernames. Continue reading Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter Target Resellers of Hacked Accounts→

Convicted SIM Swapper Gets 3 Years in Jail

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A 21-year-old Irishman who pleaded guilty to charges of helping to steal millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies from victims has been sentenced to just under three years in prison. The defendant is part of an alleged conspiracy involving at least eight others in the United States who stand accused of theft via SIM swapping, a […] Continue reading Convicted SIM Swapper Gets 3 Years in Jail→

Hang up the Phone: MFA’s Insecure Reliance on SMS

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It’s hard enough to get people to use multi-factor authentication (MFA)—you know, something you know, you have and you are. Most websites, email accounts and other devices are secured (if at all) with a simple user ID (or email address) and password—a… Continue reading Hang up the Phone: MFA’s Insecure Reliance on SMS→