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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Arrests in $400M SIM-Swap Tied to Heist at FTX?

Summary: Three Americans were charged this week with stealing more than $400 million in a November 2022 SIM-swapping attack, with the indictment alleging ringleader Robert Powell, Emily Hernandez and Carter Rohn compromised victim devices between March 2021 and April 2023. The government names the victim only as "Victim 1," but the theft occurred on Nov. 11, 2022 after the group SIM-swapped an AT&T customer by impersonating them at a retail store with a fake ID, the same day FTX declared bankruptcy.

What's compelling: Elliptic puts the stolen cryptoassets at $477 million and says it knows of no other exchange theft on that scale on that date, and its tracing found the funds laundered through exchanges tied to Russia-based criminal groups including ransomware gangs. The same SIM-swap technique later hit Kroll, the firm handling FTX's bankruptcy claims, exposing user information for multiple crypto platforms.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
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