SIM Hijackers Steal Over $5 Million in Bitcoin in First Reported Crime of its Kind
- CCN.com
- Aug 3, 2018
- 1 min read

Forget cryptojacking, SIM hijacking now seems set to become even more lucrative for criminals looking to cash in with bitcoin from the burgeoning space. A 20-year old college student from Boston, Massachusetts was arrested in California earlier this month on charges of being part of a gang that hacked cellphone numbers before stealing over US$5 million in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. According to Motherboard, the number of cell phone numbers that the Bostonian named Joel Ortiz and his accomplices hacked using a technique referred to as SIM swapping or hijacking was about 40. With SIM hijacking, mobile operators are tricked into transferring the phone number of a target to a SIM card that’s under the control of the criminal. Upon obtaining the number the criminals can then reset passwords before accessing online accounts of their victim.
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