Alabama Man Sentenced for Hacking SEC’s Official Twitter Account
Eric Council Jr., a 26-year-old from Alabama, has been sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his involvement in the hack of the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The sentencing was announced by the U.S. Department of Justice in a recent press release.
Council and a group of hackers took control of the SEC’s X account in 2024 and used it to falsely announce that the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETFs). This fake announcement caused a surge in the price of the cryptocurrency before it later plummeted.
According to the DOJ, Council and his accomplices executed a SIM swap attack on the cellphone account of an individual who had access to the SEC’s X account. This attack allowed the hackers to take over the phone number and subsequently reset the password for the SEC’s X account, giving them control over the account.
