Teen crook hacked into 75 phones and stole $1M in cryptocurrency: authorities

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Quote from: buwaytress on February 03, 2020, 04:09:45 AM

A bit late for me to this news but not sure why there hasn't been a good fix for this sim swapping tech, even though it's at least been two years since the first case. Also, not sure why it hasn't happened (or I haven't heard of it) outside of the US yet. Is it because sims have to be ID registered in SEA and when it's cloned the provider can detect 2 instances of it?

This kills 2FA. And makes me wonder if it's just safer remembering private keys and NOT using 2FA.

Sim-swapping tech or whatever they are calling it does happen outside USA..Also, it is sim-cloning because the hacker's sim imitates the original sim which basically goes offline. By the time people realize that its not just a network issue, they may have had their emails compromised and passwords changed.
In my country, there have been several of these sim frauds with people losing money from their bank accounts. The SIM card is linked with everything from the UID to bank account to the Tax identity of a person. Having one of these compromised is a nightmare scenario that I fear none of us are well prepared for.

I mean what really you can do if your network goes offline in the dead of the night? Are there really any mitigation strategies for this?

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Quote from: bitgolden on February 03, 2020, 03:51:19 AM

They should at least be charged to more than 150% of the actual damage they took so that the victims who lost their money in such hack can recover their loss as well as the authorized entity who is been taking legal action against such scammers too makes some benefits by penalizing the scammers.

It's pointless to charge ridiculous sums of money from the hackers when you don't know if they'll ever be able to cough it up. It's just as pointless as sentencing someone to hundreds of years of imprisonment.

Quote from: bitgolden on February 03, 2020, 03:51:19 AM

This would also create fear in minds of other people whoever though to do something huge to scam anyone. This would bring more security to the people who are linked with the bitcoins or cryptocurrencies.

In certain countries there is the death penalty. If the death penalty isn't enough to prevent people from committing crimes, what would a silly fine do that people will never be able to pay off? If you're already fined like millions, the next couple of millions in extra fines won't change anything at all so you can basically continue stealing from innocent people.

People just need to be even more careful about how they store/secure their cryptos. It's once again a sign that mass adoption is far away.

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Quote from: LogitechMouse on February 01, 2020, 04:16:27 AM

A wake up call for the cryptocurrency investors and holders.

What happened is a wake up call for them. He is just a young guy but he already did this. How much will the other younger people will do in the future. On the other hand, this is a warning for those holders that they must double their security when it comes to cryptos that they are holding because things like this can happen anytime. Hackers and scammers are lurking everywhere so our holdings must be secured properly.

TBH, he is a skilled young guy but what he did is just wrong. If he used his skills on the right way then this will not happen.

A bit late for me to this news but not sure why there hasn't been a good fix for this sim swapping tech, even though it's at least been two years since the first case. Also, not sure why it hasn't happened (or I haven't heard of it) outside of the US yet. Is it because sims have to be ID registered in SEA and when it's cloned the provider can detect 2 instances of it?

This kills 2FA. And makes me wonder if it's just safer remembering private keys and NOT using 2FA.

bitgolden

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Only few years of sentence would not be enough for such scammers but instead they should be heavily charged for breaking into someone other's mobile phone and stealing their private information. They should at least be charged to more than 150% of the actual damage they took so that the victims who lost their money in such hack can recover their loss as well as the authorized entity who is been taking legal action against such scammers too makes some benefits by penalizing the scammers.

This would also create fear in minds of other people whoever though to do something huge to scam anyone. This would bring more security to the people who are linked with the bitcoins or cryptocurrencies.

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Quote from: LogitechMouse on February 01, 2020, 04:16:27 AM

A wake up call for the cryptocurrency investors and holders.

What happened is a wake up call for them. He is just a young guy but he already did this. How much will the other younger people will do in the future. On the other hand, this is a warning for those holders that they must double their security when it comes to cryptos that they are holding because things like this can happen anytime. Hackers and scammers are lurking everywhere so our holdings must be secured properly.

TBH, he is a skilled young guy but what he did is just wrong. If he used his skills on the right way then this will not happen.

Youngsters usually have a tendency to make quick profits. They are the ones who might be having most greed into their minds. They would not find suitable jobs for them to earn that great income which they might find in scamming someone and this is what makes them get more advanced in scamming someone. This is the worst thing they ever do. Once they are caught, they might lose their further career and might end up behind bars.

But, they would not initially think about it if they are seeing huge profits in scamming anyone. Youngsters are most advanced and are slightly close to technology which allows them to be more futuristic but they should use their skills in the cause for betterment rather than hacking and stealing money from others.

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A wake up call for the cryptocurrency investors and holders.

What happened is a wake up call for them. He is just a young guy but he already did this. How much will the other younger people will do in the future. On the other hand, this is a warning for those holders that they must double their security when it comes to cryptos that they are holding because things like this can happen anytime. Hackers and scammers are lurking everywhere so our holdings must be secured properly.

TBH, he is a skilled young guy but what he did is just wrong. If he used his skills on the right way then this will not happen.

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Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on January 31, 2020, 11:36:11 AM

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down.

Yeah, not always. What about all of these exchange hacks? That 7000BTC Binance hack was never solved that I know of. How about that huge ETH hack that resulted in the fork a couple of years back? I remember that huge debacle in general if not in specifics, and I don't think the culprit was ever caught.

The Binance hacked of 7000 BTC has not moved ever since:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/e8b406091959700dbffcff30a60b190133721e5c39e89bb5fe23c5a554ab05ea

And I'm sure a lot of eyes are looking into it and waiting for the hackers to make the mistake of either moving it to an exchange or a mixing service and all Binance will do is to contact that services and request to block the transactions.

Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on January 31, 2020, 11:36:11 AM

The fact is, most crypto crooks get away with it--at least from what I've seen over the years. This guy was probably caught because he was really young and screwed up and left a trail that led the cops to his door. Too bad more idiots like him aren't apprehended.

Yeah, I would agree that he was too green in this game and that's why he was caught.

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Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down.

Yeah, not always. What about all of these exchange hacks? That 7000BTC Binance hack was never solved that I know of. How about that huge ETH hack that resulted in the fork a couple of years back? I remember that huge debacle in general if not in specifics, and I don't think the culprit was ever caught.

The fact is, most crypto crooks get away with it--at least from what I've seen over the years. This guy was probably caught because he was really young and screwed up and left a trail that led the cops to his door. Too bad more idiots like him aren't apprehended.

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Quote from: Broly46 on December 20, 2019, 07:33:01 AM

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

A few days back, I had to swap my 3G SIM for one which had 4G. It went well, but I was very concerned. As a precaution, the telecom provider blocked the SMS facility for 24-hours. I think this prevented a lot of scam attempts, as in the majority of the cases the criminals are making use of the SMS loophole. But two questions are unanswered here. How did the criminal came to know that the victims had this much money in their cryptocurrency wallet? And secondly, how he was able to hack the Google authenticator?

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Sim swapping could really be a problem. If a teenager could do that then we can easily say that other people can do sim swapping. Just imagine the damage that this could do and even if our accounts do have 2 factor authentication, it will put our accounts in jeopardy. It could compromise a lot of accounts and get personal informations. They should take preventive measures immediately.

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Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

Quote

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

This kind of act is pretty lame, even if they stole millions of dollars still it's useless if they will get caught. And this kind of news should be spread everywhere so anyone will be aware that scamming is not a good idea especially that the technology right now is keep on evolving and you can be identified easily by the authorities.

And I hope it will also evolve to crypto, so the hackers will think twice before they will commit any crime as I haven't read any news that there is/are hackers that were jailed because of hacking like the hacker of big exchanges especially the penetrator of binance.

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Quote from: Yaunfitda on December 20, 2019, 08:52:19 PM

Yes, he should be put to jail minimum ten years. Because he really deserves that for stealing someone's money and spending it like for jewelries, lol, total jerk he is. I do hope that people in crypto will always find justice when we loss our money from this online hackers. They really making a run on us and we all know that billions of our money are being stolen already since inception.

He's 19, intelligent but dumb at the same time. Dumbness might wear away with age, but there's no way he's going to be the same after 10 years of jail. I think 5 years is enough to fully put him through the purge without fcking up the rest of his life. And if this lesson won't teach him enough, he'll do it gain and then should be locked up for a real sentense

Lauren Smith

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They got caught because they were greed. You see what I'm saying about scammers. They never know when to stop. You would think someone would be happy with that amount of money but oh no they must want more. If this person stopped earlier they would have not been caught. Now they have nothing and probably getting jail time. Not very clever. It means nothing if you get caught.

isaac_clarke22

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I always thought that having 2fa provides the most of the security already, since it is like gonna be in contact directly to your phone and that would mean like no one would have access to it.

I heard these schemes already quite few times before, and it seems quite rare as of now but because it can do damage this big already, given that it is already done by an underage dude, exchanges, online crypto wallet services, as well as any online service that requires mobile phone numbers as part of verification process should at least add up more layer of security.

I am not sure if these hackers got a workaround with other security features like OTP authentication, but that seems the only alternative for me as of now.

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I heard about a new kind of data theft using pu lic USB charging ports. Some of you might have heard or read about it. This kind of hacking or data theft is slowly becoming a major issues. It is better to always carry a power bank whenever you are travelling out.

The scammer use the charging port of your mobile to setup malware or virus in phone.

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Quote from: FanatMonet on January 24, 2020, 11:44:47 PM

Probably the best option to protect against such attacks is to have 3 SIM cards, 1 for use in everyday life, 1 for mail, and 1 more for two-factor authentication on a cryptocurrency exchange. Even if 1 of them is hacked, this should not cause critical damage.

It still depends, if your sim card that was hacked is the one that you mainly use for authentication then your accounts are still compromised. That is why I highly do not trust mobile systems to have all of my finds, I just use them for withdrawing amounts and I advice that instead of using mobile phones to store your cryptocurrencies, why not buy a ledger or trezor, there, they can't access your keys because it is written and is outside of the vulnerable system of internet.

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Scammers' intelligence exceeds ordinary human intelligence and what we think is very safe but scammers can penetrate it in any way, and so far there are various kinds of scammers in different ways to get what is not their right and harm many people.
and what must be done by the government is to give a very harsh punishment to scammers, and to provide a deterrent effect for new scammers and even though it is difficult but it will minimize fraud in the crypto world.

FanatMonet

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Probably the best option to protect against such attacks is to have 3 SIM cards, 1 for use in everyday life, 1 for mail, and 1 more for two-factor authentication on a cryptocurrency exchange. Even if 1 of them is hacked, this should not cause critical damage.

stabledev

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2 factor authentication is a must these days. Don't put all your security on your SIM. Anyone who knows your number and is enough of a social engineer can just clone your SIM and get your coins.

HarmonyA

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Sim swapping hack is genuinely horrendous, almost all administrations use sim ID for confirmation, it's simply a question of time the whole banking to be tormented with sim swapping hacks as well.
We need palliative measures to protect our information from this ill, less more criminals would make use of it to render people penniless.

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Quote from: Zionatin on December 23, 2019, 01:08:27 PM

Great news that they are getting caught. At least this guy was clever. It is the stupid scammers that are lazy and put in 0 effort that annoy me the most. I am glad they traced and found him. He was clever but not clever enough. His transactions were kept too public I guess somewhere along the line he must have made a mistake and inserting a sim in the wrong phone or used an exchange that could track him. I bet that they probably won't let us know the outcome. I guess it is not meaty enough news to show the outcome.

Such a criminal might be wrong to choose the path, because I think he has the ability. need to be guided to do good things in the future, the goal is that he does more useful things. the mistake he made right now was enough to some people, and he deserved the punishment that was in force

kotik085

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A minimum of 5 years is enough for this criminal to serve, because he did it intentionally and consciously. To harm two victims, this is a million dollar business and they caught him. There is no retreat and nowhere to escape, caught red-handed. No luck guy.

Zionatin

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Great news that they are getting caught. At least this guy was clever. It is the stupid scammers that are lazy and put in 0 effort that annoy me the most. I am glad they traced and found him. He was clever but not clever enough. His transactions were kept too public I guess somewhere along the line he must have made a mistake and inserting a sim in the wrong phone or used an exchange that could track him. I bet that they probably won't let us know the outcome. I guess it is not meaty enough news to show the outcome.

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Quote from: Blitzboy on December 23, 2019, 11:11:39 AM

Quote from: Baofeng on December 21, 2019, 07:39:08 AM

I wouldn't call it a talent, he has skills that he uses in a bad way so he is criminal by definition. He could have some accomplice here, I surmise that do that initial pre-staging for him and then he do everything from behind. One lesson though, sooner or later the full hands of the law will caught them. One thing that can be an advantage for him is that he is still very young, at least he can still mend ways once he got a second lease of life.

I do not deny that he is a true criminal, but with what he did, with his skill at a very young age. The link above does not mention any of his accomplices. The problem is that he chose the wrong path, instead of being given to glory, he chose the criminal path, anyway I keep my opinion, he is talented.

The fact is that I see a completely different problem in this situation, except that the world has recognized another criminal. I'm talking about the popularity of cryptocurrency and the authoritative security of cryptocurrency funds in the smartphones of its users. Such news only undermines credibility and repels potential users and possibly new investors.

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Quote from: Baofeng on December 21, 2019, 07:39:08 AM

I wouldn't call it a talent, he has skills that he uses in a bad way so he is criminal by definition. He could have some accomplice here, I surmise that do that initial pre-staging for him and then he do everything from behind. One lesson though, sooner or later the full hands of the law will caught them. One thing that can be an advantage for him is that he is still very young, at least he can still mend ways once he got a second lease of life.

I do not deny that he is a true criminal, but with what he did, with his skill at a very young age. The link above does not mention any of his accomplices. The problem is that he chose the wrong path, instead of being given to glory, he chose the criminal path, anyway I keep my opinion, he is talented.

Eclipse26

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That's why instead of stopping people to use cryptocurrency because of this kind of matter, the government should make efforts to teach people how dangerous internet could be and give everyone knowledge to avoid scams and fraud. We are responsible for our own money and if we lose them, it's our fault for being careless. We can't stop them so we have to be educated for ourselves. We can't change them so we need to change and be educated. How can people will be that technology literate if the government is trying to stop people from learning it.

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We cannot prevent these frauds by only punishing them. People need good education. Those who do fraud need to be rehabilitated again. Or he'il be in prison for a while. When he gets out, he can commit that crime again.
Phones are more important than our ID cards because we carry all our information and money inside the phone!

Niya

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The fact the he stole all the money from just 2 victims in my opinion means he targeted those users very carefully. Maybe he knew them in person or they are quite famous.

QEHedge

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You guys know that there is a internet security company or nation state that would love to hire these kids.

Imagine a nation state working with their team of hackers with these kids and we see them hack crypto on a global scale.

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Quote from: stompix on December 21, 2019, 02:03:37 PM

~snip~

You are probably right, some people are extremely irresponsible and share their information everywhere, and sometimes they boast about the amount of coins they own. In fact, they are causing themselves problems in life, because such things should be private. It's not just about anyone being able to do us a SIM swap, it's also about physically endangering our property and lives.

It is a big responsibility on the mobile carriers who should introduce a much bigger check before issuing a replacement SIM card, but most are only interested in making as much profit as possible.

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Quote from: Lucius on December 21, 2019, 06:52:32 AM

Quote from: stompix on December 21, 2019, 05:17:31 AM

~

I agree that this is not a classic hack, but how he gets phone numbers of potential victims? I'm sure it's not random guessing of numbers, it really wouldn't make any sense. 2 accounts and $1 million seems like a perfectly targeted attack.

~ I just walked into my carrier's store, said my name and phone number, and got a new card.

Well, you answered the question a bit yourself...
You went in with only the number and the name and got it.

And phone numbers nowadays are so easy to get from guys working with cryptos, everyone is in telegram and WhatsApp groups and lots of people forget that giving your real phone number to strangers is not a good idea.
Sometimes I feel like it's harder to get those details from a girl you try to pick up in a bar than from the whole team of a crypto "project".

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Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

The truth is that this is not going to end, it's left for us all to learn to be very careful on how we handle our money account, you never know what may happen. This is not the first time that this kind of people have been caught and punished, they have been punished several times but despite that you still continue to see a lot of them popping up. So that's not going to change, we all just have to be very careful and avoid them.

Quote from: Soldierswitlittlefaith on December 20, 2019, 10:27:24 AM

I think this is a hot blow on uncle G Shocked

who seems to be security concious and tend to offer one of the most secured email services.
So, why did gmail not detect unusual activities?

Gmail notifies users once there are suspicious activities in their account, but you get notified when someone has already accessed your account, so I'm very sure that the owners of the Gmail accounts got the alert that an unknown device accessed their Gmail. Good thing he was caught.

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Quote from: Blitzboy on December 21, 2019, 04:53:04 AM

Not a support for thieves, but I'm really impressed by what a 19-year-old guy can do. He's really talented, but this talent is not being used, it's a pity. Anyway, recently, a lot of thieves have been arrested, which is a good thing. The authorities have been doing their job very well. With cryptocurrencies, we can't know when we're hacked, everything is dangerous, even with your phone.

I wouldn't call it a talent, he has skills that he uses in a bad way so he is criminal by definition. He could have some accomplice here, I surmise that do that initial pre-staging for him and then he do everything from behind. One lesson though, sooner or later the full hands of the law will caught them. One thing that can be an advantage for him is that he is still very young, at least he can still mend ways once he got a second lease of life.

Lucius

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Quote from: stompix on December 21, 2019, 05:17:31 AM

He is simply a con artist who constantly goes to stores and asks clerks for a new sim card with the victims's number because he "lost" it.
That's all they do, nothing high tech, all you need is to to be a good snake oil salesman.

I agree that this is not a classic hack, but how he gets phone numbers of potential victims? I'm sure it's not random guessing of numbers, it really wouldn't make any sense. 2 accounts and $1 million seems like a perfectly targeted attack.

It is a big responsibility on the telecom companies that provide replacement SIM cards very easily, sometimes without any verification. I personally had the experience of having my SIM card replaced in less than 1 minute without ever asking for verification. I just walked into my carrier's store, said my name and phone number, and got a new card. After that, I wouldn't use any SIM-related service that has anything to do with something as sensitive as cryptocurrency.

fiulpro

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I think instead of 5-7 years and Making new laws for cryptocurrencies they should be given equivalent life sentence with respect to the people who do frauds in millions , just because it's Cryptocurrency doesn't mean it's fake money ..
5-7-10 years depends , but they shouldn't be discriminated. Money doesn't appear out of thin air , money is money government should realize that .

airdnasxela

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Even it is a good thing that they were able to caught the suspect, it still bothers me. Because it's a teen! Meaning all ages with enough knowledge, they can really do bad things for their own. 19 is still a young age yet me manage to steal big amount of money. It only means that cryptocurrency hacking are growing, even young age can do it. The more it grows, the lesser the possibility that the government will approve the idea of cryptocurrency. How can we achieve mass adoption when news like this can grow fud to other people?

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Quote from: Blitzboy on December 21, 2019, 04:53:04 AM

Not a support for thieves, but I'm really impressed by what a 19-year-old guy can do. He's really talented, but this talent is not being used, it's a pity.

Taletended in what?
Really, stop using the word "hacker" and "hack" there is nothing like this happening here!
He is simply a con artist who constantly goes to stores and asks clerks for a new sim card with the victims's number because he "lost" it.
That's all they do, nothing high tech, all you need is to to be a good snake oil salesman.

Quote

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

Indeed, such a smart and talented boy he was, you realize how much talent those thieves have just by looking at what they purchase.

blckhawk

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It's a common exploit. Even the CEO of Twitter has been victim of such method, though only used to manipulate his Twitter account. I think the problem relies on the SIM service providers. They should impose restrictions on who can only make valid SIM swap to their accounts. If in that point, it is already secure, then these types of hacks would be lessen.

Blitzboy

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Not a support for thieves, but I'm really impressed by what a 19-year-old guy can do. He's really talented, but this talent is not being used, it's a pity. Anyway, recently, a lot of thieves have been arrested, which is a good thing. The authorities have been doing their job very well. With cryptocurrencies, we can't know when we're hacked, everything is dangerous, even with your phone.

makishart

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Quote from: aomakun on December 21, 2019, 03:25:18 AM

with a sentence of 5-10 years can destroy their mentality, and I think after they are free they will do good because the prison also makes a goal so that people can return to doing good in social life after they are free and I think quite comparable because they also definitely pay a fine.

A sneak will always be a sneak even after after shedding its skin so being prisoned doesn't guarantee that they will do a good deeds in the future but it's for sure could make people think twice before doing wicked things and it's a good thing that these people being prisoned god knows what they'll do with the money and probably for something useless or even illegal.

aomakun

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with a sentence of 5-10 years can destroy their mentality, and I think after they are free they will do good because the prison also makes a goal so that people can return to doing good in social life after they are free and I think quite comparable because they also definitely pay a fine.

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I hope this teen got sentenced into serious punishment and so that it could act as a warning for other people with malicious intention.

Quote from: xvids on December 20, 2019, 03:10:27 PM

To be honest I also think that some people deserve to be robbed,
But it isn't the lazy rich people for me it should be the corrupt people those who also steal from the people they should be the one's who deserve to get a taste of their own medicine.

You know some people are just that careless and saying that they deserve to be robbed is not a good thing because they don't even want that to happen in first place. Not saying BS but sometime people got the be careless naturally since they were born.

gabbie2010

sr. member

Activity: 2842

Merit: 326

20BET - Premium Casino & Sportsbook

The stupid scammer must have perpetuate this nefarious act with a high sophistication and dexterity a whopping 75 phones hacked I was very glad he was fished out and already facing prosecution had it been he has hidden without any trace then I would have assumed that engaging in cryptos related activities is now very risky and unworthy.

minersday

hero member

Activity: 1484

Merit: 535

All these hackers and scammers will be fished out sooner or later. I don't know why some folks always plan to make the short cut route to riches, Damn it folks, there is no shortcut to life. Work hard and smart and your labour will merit to something in future. Stealing over such a huge amount of cryptocurrencies deserves a serious punishment. I think he deserves 10 years to serve as deterrent to others who commit such atrocities.

carlisle1

hero member

Activity: 2744

Merit: 541

Campaign Management?"Hhampuz" is the Man

how come that these crooks can just do things like this as simple he can do?while people are struggling to earn bucks small by small and these people taking just like that.

i think the punishments on this kind of case must be higher and they will suffer from stealing hard earned money .and put behind bars for longer time than what is given right now.

FaithInCrypto

jr. member

Activity: 168

Merit: 2

mada mada dane

Aren't people who lost their sim should've reported their sim stolen so that it could be blocked or something? That way it couldn't be used to something like this. That's a huge amount of money and I'm happy that he gets the right punishment he deserves.

adaseb

legendary

Activity: 3808

Merit: 1723

The reason why this was easy for him to do is because people commonly lose their phone, first thing they do is go to a phone kiosk at a mall, say they lost their phone, give their name and number and sometimes the clerk doesn't ask for more verification. They don''t ask for more info because they think "Why would someone want to steal someone elses phone number"?. Or he had some friend who worked at a phone store who did these sim swaps.

I am assuming that the victims all used Coinbase and used Authy, because the Google 2FA is more of an offline type of 2FA and more secure. The other issue could of been Gmail. I am assuming they would simply call Gmail, say they forgot their password and as long as they called from the phone number on file they would reset the password for them.

Baby Dragon

sr. member

Activity: 896

Merit: 272

OWNR - Store all crypto in one app.

Quote from: eaLiTy on December 20, 2019, 08:13:09 AM

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

Good to hear these kind of positive news as the criminals are getting caught left and right for their past and we need harsh punishment and the most important thing is they need to confiscate all the loot plus their interest so that everyone will think twice before going after easy money, i have not seen in the article whether the authorities are returning the asset back or valuation that was stolen during that time.

Hackers these days are getting wiser and they are willing to do anything to get what they want, it's sad to see that even teens are getting engaged into illegal activities like this. Even if you have secured yourself, those hackers are wise enough to find some ways to stole your funds and that is the reason why we should be more cautious and attentive. It is indeed good to hear that they are going to suffer the consequences of their actions and a decade is enough because they should learn from their mistakes and promise not to do it again though we can't literally assure that they will stop after that incident but it will make them realize.

CryptoBry

sr. member

Activity: 1008

Merit: 355

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

I think it is really about time that laws on these aspects should be modernized and be more adopted to the existence of digital assets and cryptocurrency. And of course, we can be sending a strong message to hackers if penalties can be doubled or even tripled. A mess like this should have no place in our modern interconnected society as these are the people who are always looking for weaknesses or loopholes in the current technological set-up. We don't want more and more people getting part of the victim statistics.

Wintersoldier

sr. member

Activity: 966

Merit: 274

Quote from: pakhitheboss on December 20, 2019, 07:50:53 AM

Sim swapping technique is slowly becoming a favourite instrument for commuting financial crime. What can be done to prevent this faud?

Apply for private number with the service provider, your number never gets displayed. There is a cost involved.
Never use the number registered with banks for personal use, use it only for financial transaction.
Use condom USB to charge your phone in public.
Install anti malware on your phone.

You can reduce the chance of getting your phone hacked by following the above mentioned.

I've just heard from my friend that there should be a country that restricts individual to only have one mobile number meaning to say that the simcard they will going to use is only for them and cannot be used by others, this is in fact will provide huge benefits as anti theft and anti hack as well but will need the support of the government to regulate it. In addition, I think storing cryptocurrency to wallets in mobile phones and even in PC is actually not the best idea to secure it. There are malwares that records that screen of the pc and mobile and it is likely for them to hack our accounts. A hardware wallet which hides the private key is our only hope to secure huge amount of funds.

kingcolex

sr. member

Activity: 254

Merit: 1258

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

Quote

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

That's huge money and the amount of people he committed crimes against, he's going to get more time than if he killed someone by accident. Definitely 20 years is my guess.

Yaunfitda

hero member

Activity: 2870

Merit: 594

Yes, he should be put to jail minimum ten years. Because he really deserves that for stealing someone's money and spending it like for jewelries, lol, total jerk he is. I do hope that people in crypto will always find justice when we loss our money from this online hackers. They really making a run on us and we all know that billions of our money are being stolen already since inception.

meanwords

full member

Activity: 1624

Merit: 163

Justice at last. I was a victim of sim swapping when Bitcoin was still nearing its all-time high. It was a frustrating time because how can they do that? How is the sim provider allowing this kind of scams? So after that, I just stop using my sim as verification for my cryptocurrency related activities. Maybe use it sometimes for my fb or twitter acc.

figmentofmyass

legendary

Activity: 1652

Merit: 1483

Quote from: Broly46 on December 20, 2019, 07:33:01 AM

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

i can understand why exchanges might want to verify phone number as an ID verification method, especially if they don't require actual KYC documentation. i just wish they more actively discouraged it as a 2FA method.

i suppose they are in a tough position. if they discourage SMS 2FA in favor of TOTP or UTF, some customers will get superior security but some will opt for no 2FA at all due to the inconvenience. people are very used to the idea of SMS verification because lots of internet services and banking platforms use it.

Gabrics

full member

Activity: 197

Merit: 124

Just digging around

Always wondered how a phone company just cuts of a live SIM because someone calls/shows up? I mean even if the clerk is "in it", they shouldn't have the right. The system should at least auto-call/text the live SIM and ask "hey you want to be cut off?"

If they report the SIM stolen they should limit outgoing calls/text, but still give the notice above with some deadline.

If I recall correctly some people already suing US providers for negligence.

target

legendary

Activity: 2282

Merit: 1041

Reports are not detailed, it would be nice to know how he did the sim swapping for readers to be aware and avoid become a victim too.

Quote from: xvids on December 20, 2019, 03:10:27 PM

Quote from: pixie85 on December 20, 2019, 02:22:17 PM

Quote

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said.

Just wow. some people really deserve to be robbed. I'm not saying that because they were rich but rich and careless. We poor people take care of every few dollars and there's no way I'd lose as little as $100 like that. If I had 100k it would be behind multiple levels of protection. Those people had so much and didn't care, kept it all online.

All that idiot bought with the money was watches and gay accessories. What a jerk.

To be honest I also think that some people deserve to be robbed,
But it isn't the lazy rich people for me it should be the corrupt people those who also steal from the people they should be the one's who deserve to get a taste of their own medicine.

It didn't mention where the coins are stored probably in the exchange, those phones probably belong to someone who does trading a lot. $1M for two accounts which both of them must have been good at doing their craft but carelessly become a victim of sim swapping.

xvids

sr. member

Activity: 1176

Merit: 301

Quote from: pixie85 on December 20, 2019, 02:22:17 PM

Quote

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said.

Just wow. some people really deserve to be robbed. I'm not saying that because they were rich but rich and careless. We poor people take care of every few dollars and there's no way I'd lose as little as $100 like that. If I had 100k it would be behind multiple levels of protection. Those people had so much and didn't care, kept it all online.

All that idiot bought with the money was watches and gay accessories. What a jerk.

To be honest I also think that some people deserve to be robbed,
But it isn't the lazy rich people for me it should be the corrupt people those who also steal from the people they should be the one's who deserve to get a taste of their own medicine.

pixie85

hero member

Activity: 2184

Merit: 531

Quote

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said.

Just wow. some people really deserve to be robbed. I'm not saying that because they were rich but rich and careless. We poor people take care of every few dollars and there's no way I'd lose as little as $100 like that. If I had 100k it would be behind multiple levels of protection. Those people had so much and didn't care, kept it all online.

All that idiot bought with the money was watches and gay accessories. What a jerk.

kryptqnick

legendary

Activity: 3332

Merit: 1404

Join the world-leading crypto sportsbook NOW!

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

Quote

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

Okay, let's sort some things out. Is it bad to steal identities and hack wallets? It is. Should this person receive some punishment if found guilty? Yes. But I think it's rather important that he (if it was him) did not steal the money from poor people. $1million from two wallets sounds like rich victims, and being so rich is likely to suggest that a person got an undeserved boost or even stole from the people, basically. Moreover, it's a young and talented person, so it's important not to destroy Yousef but help him use his talent for good (like, to improve phone security or help hack into the phones of terrorists). The aim of a penitentiary system is re-education and then rehabilitation of a person in society, so I hope that'll happen.

Yudhisthir

full member

Activity: 1065

Merit: 103

People can't always depend on others and they should learn to secure their devices themselves. Everyone learns from their own mistakes but a wise one should learn from others as well. It's a really bad idea to keep a large amount of coin in a mobile wallet. Though I too may be careless at times but every place I have more than $1K worth of coins stored. I increase security for that access.

YuginKadoya

legendary

Activity: 3038

Merit: 1169

It is a bad thing to really make an entrance into the Cryptocurrency market with a fraudulent act and it is not going to end well with the market and the one that did the evil deed, so let this be a lesson and stick your feet on legit earning with cryptocurrency there is no short cut to these stuff, even though there are people getting a chance of a lifetime,

Well, the crook that did these is pretty skillful in hacking each phone of his victim this pretty much is a great feat to have in developing it in making a secure wallet than just having it as a potential threat to Holders.

Soldierswitlittlefaith

member

Activity: 239

Merit: 27

I think this is a hot blow on uncle G Shocked

who seems to be security concious and tend to offer one of the most secured email services.
So, why did gmail not detect unusual activities?

Thanks
Soldierwitlittlefaith

BeManga

sr. member

Activity: 962

Merit: 269

CryptoDirectories.com

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

Quote

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

i hope they will also start to hunt those ICO scammers
many people lose a lot of money and interest in crypto because of those scammers
until now many new ICO still pop up and like what happened in the past almost all of them will just leave after taking the investment

dothebeats

legendary

Activity: 3542

Merit: 1352

Quote from: Broly46 on December 20, 2019, 07:33:01 AM

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

And perhaps add another layer of security for those companies/services that impose such? SIM-based verification is fine and secured, don't get me wrong, but knowing how easy it is for hackers to do such things is troubling. Some may say that "I don't take my phone out in public to text, chat etc. etc." but there's always a risk accompanied with it. For the mean time, device and SIM-based 2FA are the most secure forms of verification for services, but I do hope that they add another layer of security on top of their 2FA for the hackers to not access compromised accounts easily.

Good thing the kid is caught and arrested pronto.

Lucius

legendary

Activity: 3234

Merit: 5637

Blackjack.fun-Free Raffle-Join&Win $50🎲

I think this is a good warning for anyone using their phones as some kind of insurance or extra protection for crypto exchanges. For some people, SIM-swapping is children's play, but as in the present case, they do not know how to hide their tracks and are quickly caught. For me personally, such an option is out of the question, the risk is simply too great. A much better and more secure option is e-mail 2FA, because e-mail is not easy to hack if we stick to some basic security.

What I find bad is the decision to release him until the trial begins, no matter what his passport confiscated. For $1 million theft he should be behind bars, but I guess he is saved by the fact that he is only 19 years old.

ChrisPop

legendary

Activity: 2324

Merit: 1035

Not your Keys, Not your Bitcoins

I'm not sure about the american prisons and reinsertion programs, but usually these punishments are not enough or the programs are not good. As we all know it is very hard to change the mind of a grown-up individual. Even if at 19 years old he might be viewed at as a teenager his education and beliefs are 100% messed up. The most important thing is to recover the prejudice, then the punishment. He is a human being like all of us so he deserves a proper re-education, but my opinion is these processes are too superficial, plus we pay a ton of money for them. A reform is needed.

kaya11

full member

Activity: 1344

Merit: 110

SOL.BIOKRIPT.COM

Quote from: pakhitheboss on December 20, 2019, 07:50:53 AM

Sim swapping technique is slowly becoming a favourite instrument for commuting financial crime. What can be done to prevent this faud?

Apply for private number with the service provider, your number never gets displayed. There is a cost involved.
Never use the number registered with banks for personal use, use it only for financial transaction.
Use condom USB to charge your phone in public.
Install anti malware on your phone.

You can reduce the chance of getting your phone hacked by following the above mentioned.

In some rare cases, if you the sim number you are using is used by a different person also, it literally happened to my cousin, I was calling her number and some other random dude answers the phone and was far away from our place. that is totally weird and told her about it, the next day she changed her number. I never had imagined that even in simcards you are not safe, I was using my phone number for security reasons, like authentication and the likes.

eaLiTy

hero member

Activity: 2814

Merit: 911

Have Fun )@@( Stay Safe

Quote from: Kemarit on December 20, 2019, 06:18:12 AM

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

Good to hear these kind of positive news as the criminals are getting caught left and right for their past and we need harsh punishment and the most important thing is they need to confiscate all the loot plus their interest so that everyone will think twice before going after easy money, i have not seen in the article whether the authorities are returning the asset back or valuation that was stolen during that time.

pakhitheboss

hero member

Activity: 2156

Merit: 803

Top Crypto Casino

Sim swapping technique is slowly becoming a favourite instrument for commuting financial crime. What can be done to prevent this faud?

Apply for private number with the service provider, your number never gets displayed. There is a cost involved.
Never use the number registered with banks for personal use, use it only for financial transaction.
Use condom USB to charge your phone in public.
Install anti malware on your phone.

You can reduce the chance of getting your phone hacked by following the above mentioned.

Broly46

full member

Activity: 1554

Merit: 116

0xe25ce19226C3CE65204570dB8D6c6DB1E9Df74AC

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

Kemarit

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1353

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

Quote

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

Topic: Teen crook hacked into 75 phones and stole $1M in cryptocurrency: authorities (Read 937 times)