US Crypto Users And Investors Are Being Affected By SIM Swapping Attacks

US Crypto Users Are Being Affected By SIM Swapping Attacks

The cryptocurrency community in the United States is being affected by a series of SIM swapping attacks that are damaging the already not credible crypto industry. According to a recent report released by ZDNet, several attacks have affected different users in the United States.

SIM Swapping Attacks Affect Crypto Users

Individuals in the US are being affected by attacks performed by hackers in which their SIM cards are being swapped. This is a type of account take over (ATO) that an actor uses a technique in which it transfers a victim’s phone number to their own SIM card. In this way, the attackers can reset passwords used in crypto exchanges or receive a 2FA authentication code.

Although these attacks were already known, there have been some important hacks related to SIM swapping methods during the last few months. Law enforcement agencies have also been tracking down the perpetrators of these attacks and the number of these hacks dropped substantially.

Some crypto users claiming they have been affected by these attacks include the co-founder of Miner Update, Andrew Kang and the individuals from the MolochDAO community.

Apparently @MolochDAO members are under SIM swap attack. Reminder to use 2fa apps and don’t use text verification for anything (especially gmail).

— eric.eth (@econoar) May 26, 2019

Sim Swapped. Phone number ported. Thanks @TMobile

That’s at least 15 of us in the crypto community in the last week.

— Andrew Kang (@Rewkang) June 1, 2019

Another user affected was Sean Coonce, that wrote a blog post in which he explained how he lost over $100,000 worth of virtual currencies after being affected by these attacks. Some victims that avoid being hacked said that they switched to hardware security tokens to protect accounts rather than using the traditional SMS-based 2FA system.

At the moment, it seems that the SIM swapping attacks are happening in the United States or to users in the country. Most of the attacks have been performed against users from T-Mobile but AT&T individuals were also affected.

Caleb Tuttle, a detective at the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office, commented:

“The first is when the attacker bribes or blackmails a mobile store employee into assisting in the crime. The second involves current and/or former mobile store employees who knowingly abuse their access to customer data and the mobile company's network. Finally, crooked store employees may trick unwitting associates at other stores into swapping a target's existing SIM card with a new one.”

Although the last weeks were very negative for the crypto community regarding SIM swapping attacks, attackers may have to give explanations to authorities about what they have been doing.

It is always important to put 2FA protection on crypto exchanges and other platforms and use hardware or cold storage wallets to store digital currencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and others. Attackers are always ready to steal users’ funds, and they are using very complex methods to access them.