Forget cryptojacking, SIM hijacking now seems set to become even more lucrative for criminals looking to cash in with bitcoin from the burgeoning space.
]A 20-year old college student from BostonMassachusetts was arrested in California earlier this month on charges of being part of a gang that hacked cellphone numbers before stealing over US$5 million in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
According to
Motherboard, the number of cell phone numbers that the Bostonian named Joel Ortiz and his accomplices hacked using a technique referred to as SIM swapping or hijacking was about 40. With SIM hijacking, mobile operators are tricked into transferring the phone number of a target to a SIM card thats under the control of the criminal. Upon obtaining the number the criminals can then reset passwords before accessing online accounts of their victim.
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https://www.ccn.com/sim-hijackers-steal-over-5-million-in-bitcoin-in-first-reported-crime-of-its-kind/ This isn't really new information to be honest. People have been having issues with 2FA being easily broken by similar cases for quite a long while now. Which is probably why you mostly see token based 2FA rather than the old style.