First Hacker Convicted of ‘SIM Swapping’ Attack Gets 10 Years in Prison

Ortiz was arrested last year on charges of siphoning millions of
dollars in cryptocurrency from around 40 victims using a method
commonly known as “SIM swapping,” which typically involves
fraudulently porting of the same number to a new SIM card belonging
to the attacker.

In SIM swapping, attackers social engineer a victim’s mobile
phone provider by making a phony call posing as their target and
claiming that their SIM card has been lost and that they would like
to request a SIM swap.

The attackers attempt to convince the target’s telecommunications
company that they are the actual owner of the phone number they
want to swap by providing required personal information on the
target, like their SSNs and addresses, eventually tricking the
telecoms to port the target’s phone number over to a SIM card
belonging to the attackers.

Once successful, the attackers essentially gained access to
their target’s mobile phone number using which they can obtain
one-time passwords, verification codes, and two-factor
authentication in order to reset passwords for and gain access to
target’s social media, email, bank, and cryptocurrency
accounts.

SIM swapping has grown increasingly popular among cybercriminals
over the past year and Joel Ortiz, a California man, is the
first person to receive jail time for this crime, after pleading
guilty to stealing more than $5 million in cryptocurrency from 40
victims, according to Motherboard^[1].

Rather than facing trials and severe consequences imposed by the
jury, Ortiz chose to accept a plea deal for 10 years last week,
according to Deputy District Director Eric West of Santa Clara
County, California.

However, the official sentencing of Ortiz is set to take place
on March 14th.

There are more pending cases in court wherein defendants stole
millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency using SIM swapping.

One of the defendants named Dawson Bakies, accused of
stealing the identities of and funds from more than 50 victims in
the United States through SIM swapping has been indicted^[2] by Manhattan’s District
Attorney (DA).

The 20-year-old Ohio man has been arrested and charged with
identity theft, grand larceny, computer tampering and scheme to
defraud, among other charges.

Over the past year, federal authorities around the world have
begun a crackdown on cryptocurrency related crime. A year ago, feds
arrested a group of
nuclear engineers in Russia^[3]
after they were caught using supercomputers to mine Bitcoin.