Eric Council Jr., a 25-year-old Alabama man, has pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to hack the X (formerly Twitter) account of the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The attack, carried out in January 2024, involved posting a fraudulent announcement falsely claiming that the SEC had approved the trading of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The false post temporarily caused Bitcoin's value to rise by over $1,000 before the SEC regained control of the account and debunked the claim, leading to a $2,000 drop in Bitcoin's value.
Council executed the attack using a SIM swapping scheme. By utilizing stolen personally identifiable information (PII) provided by co-conspirators, he created a fake ID and impersonated an AT&T customer. Posing as an FBI employee, he convinced AT&T store employees to transfer the victim’s phone number to a SIM card in his possession. Once in control of the victim’s phone number, Council and his co-conspirators used it to generate reset codes, gaining access to the SEC’s X account and posting under the name of the SEC chairman.
Court documents reveal that Council was compensated in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for his role in the scheme. He was arrested in December 2024 and has now admitted his involvement in the attack.
