SEC’s X Account Compromised, Bitcoin Shared
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently reported that one of their accounts, account X, was compromised through a process called “SIM swapping” earlier this month. The SEC stated that they are working with security and federal surveillance units to investigate the seizure of the X account by an unauthorized person.
Two days after the incident, the SEC, in collaboration with the telecom operator, discovered that someone had taken control of the mobile phone number associated with the account using SIM swapping, a method that allows someone to transfer a phone number to another device without permission, and receive voice and text message notifications associated with the number.
The SEC emphasized that this unauthorized access to the phone number occurred through the telecom operator, not through SEC systems. They also mentioned that there was no evidence of unauthorized access to corporate systems, data, devices, or other social media accounts.
In addition, it was stated that the multi-factor authentication measure for account X was disabled at the request of the staff in July last year due to account access problems.
In a separate incident, on January 9, a post was made on the SEC’s X social media account announcing the approval of spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). This caused the price of Bitcoin to spike to $48,000, but it later dropped to the $45-46,000 range after the news was debunked by the SEC.
SEC Chairman Gensler stated that the institution’s X account was seized by an unauthorized person, who made the unauthorized announcement about the Bitcoin ETF approval. The SEC clarified that the announcement was not made by the SEC or its staff, and that the account was accessed without permission by an unknown individual.
