A few weeks ago, news spread around the world about hackers who managed to gain access to other people's Instagram accounts. This happened by "stealing" another person's phone number and transferring it to another SIM card. The investigation of the whole matter was successful and the police managed to arrest a group of pachatof the people who were responsible for the entire act.
Court records published last week by The Verge's Brian Krebs show that Florida police arrested a pa...chatele, responsible for stealing SIM cards from seven victims in seven different countries. The discovery was made thanks to the mother of thechatele who overheard her son pretending to be an employeeance operator AT&T and notified law enforcement. Upon arrival, police searched the man's room and discovered a list of names and phone numbers, SIM cards, and cell phones. Investigators were able to track down seven SIM card owners in seven different states. In addition to the cards, the victims' identities were stolen and "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in cryptocurrencies were lost.
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But it didn't just stay with one person.chatele. Police interviewed the suspect and determined that the group consisted of about eight people. Among them was a man named Ricky Handschumacher, who organized the entire event through the Discord platform, originally designed for communication between computer game players. PachatAmong other things, the criminals planned to obtain personal information about their victims, then impersonate them and try to obtain a new SIM card. With the new SIM card, they could then gain access to the passwords associated with the respective phone number, as well as to the owners' possible crypto accounts. Handschumacher is responsible for the machinations involving more than $100 in cryptocurrency.
This method of stealing a phone number, or transferring it to another SIM card, is called SIM-stealing.jacking or SIM-hacking. It is in its own way an easy way to take over other people's accounts and sensitive data practically painlessly. It is also one of the few cases where two-factor authentication does not protect users, and the reason why many companies - including Instagram - have promised to work even better on their verification methods.
Have fun mom :-D :-D
My account was also stolen and the only thing I regret is the access to Instagram, when despite repeatedly filling out a request to resolve the situation, I am unable to access Instagram. nestAlas, no reply.