Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in jail and three years of supervised launch on Friday for taking part within the hack of the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The U.S. Department of Justice introduced the sentencing in a press launch. Council and different hackers took over the SEC’s X account in 2024 to falsely announce that the company had authorized Bitcoin change traded funds, or ETFs, which shot up the worth of the cryptocurrency earlier than later dropping.
According to the DOJ, Council and his co-conspirators carried out a SIM swap assault towards the cellphone account of an individual who had entry to the SEC’s X account, which allowed the hackers to take management of their telephone quantity. From there, the hackers reset the password of the SEC’s X account, granting them management of the account.
