It’s A First; Digital Pickpocketer Sent To Prison, Can You Steal Bitcoin Through ‘Sim Swapping’

Just because blockchain technology ensures advanced security and protection of your crypto assets, it doesn’t mean the same level of security applies to third part applications like wallets or crypto exhanges that don’t necessarily safeguard consumer’s private keys as well as they’d like.

The amount of cryptocurrency that is stored online is in billions and it has become fair game for experienced and creative hackers and even several professional ones. A recent and innovative way to achieve that has become SIM swapping which plays by the rule that if a user isn’t in control of their keys, their cryptos are vulnerable.

As with any theft, crime doesn’t pay but some people learn that the hard way. Now, as per a report by Motherboard, a college student has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for having stolen a whopping $5 million in cryptocurrency by sim swapping where hackers hijack gullible user’s phone numbers.

SIM swappers gain access to user’s personal mobile numbers by pretending to be the phone’s owner to network providers and then simply changing the passwords of their crypto wallet accounts which they then clean out.

In recent years, this method has become exceedingly popular, with hackers even attacking several prominent crypto holders  including Chris Burniske who is a virtual currency investor and even the chief technologist of the Federal Trade Commission.

Sim swapping cases have started increasing day by day. Only last year in August, prominent crypto investor, Michael Terpin filed a lawsuit that accused AT&T, of fraud following an attack by hackers on his personal account after they stole his cryptocurrency.  New York authorities indicted a 20 year old after he was found guilty of conducting over 50 sim swapping operations around the country.