Alabama man admits participation in 2024 SEC X account hack

A man in Alabama has pleaded guilty to participating in the hack of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s  X account.

According to a press release on 10 February, Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, conspired with others to take over the SEC’s X account and falsely announced that the SEC approved BTC Exchange Traded Funds last year.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 16 and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison depending on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

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Offering crypto community false hope

Because of the false announcement concerning the BTC ETF approval which was anticipated at the time, the price of BTC rapidly increased by more than $1,000 per coin before the SEC regained control of the account.

The conspirators gained access to the account through an unauthorized Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) swap carried out by Council. 

This is a process through which a criminal known as a SIM swapper convinces a cell phone carrier to reassign a cell phone number from the legitimate subscriber or user’s SIM card to a SIM card they control.

That way, they are able to access anything the real owner used the phone number to register, such as the SEC X account, a bank account, etc.

Council then used an identification card printer to create a fraudulent identification card with a victim’s personally identifiable information obtained from his co-conspirators.

With the fraudulent identification card, he impersonated the victim and gained access to the victim’s cellular phone number for the purpose of accessing the SEC’s account.

This gave his accomplices access to post the fake announcement and he was paid in Bitcoin for his role. Council pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.