A new statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission explained that the regulator's X account was compromised after a threat actor was able to gain control of the phone number associated with the account, in a SIM-swapping cyberattack.
SIM-swapping attacks are a common way for threat actors to hijack social media accounts, crypto wallets, and more.
The SEC X account was breached on Jan. 9 by crypto hackers who posted a message regarding Bitcoin ETFs, which temporarily caused the value of Bitcoin to spike.
Federal legislators have called for inquiries into the incident and investigations are ongoing by agencies including the SEC Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Department of Justice, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the statement said.
SIM swapping, in particular, is tricky to defend against, Will Glazier, director of threat research for Cequence Security, said in a statement.
He added that wireless carriers intentionally make it easy to move a particular phone number to a competing carrier to make it easy for consumers to make a switch to a new network.
This Cyber News was published on www.darkreading.com. Publication date: Tue, 23 Jan 2024 19:55:04 +0000