Alabama man arrested for violating SEC social media account

The FBI arrested a man in Alabama on Thursday after accusing him of being behind the takeover of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) social media account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Justice Department said 25-year-old Eric Council Jr. was arrested in Athens, Alabama, after being charged Oct. 10 with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.

If convicted, the councilman faces a maximum of five years in prison, and the indictment states that other people were involved in the incident.

On January 9th, the account

The Justice Department said the council gained control of the SEC’s X account “through an unauthorized substitution of the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM).” During SIM swapping, hackers cause phone companies to assign a legitimate subscriber’s cell phone number to a SIM card controlled by the hacker.

“As part of the scheme, the Council and co-conspirators allegedly created a false identification document in the victim’s name, which the Council used to impersonate the victim; took over the victim’s cell phone account; and accessed the online social media account linked to the victim’s cell phone number to access the SEC’s X account and create the fraudulent post on behalf of SEC Chairman Gensler,” the Justice Department stated.

The lawsuit says the council used an ID template with the victim’s name and his own face, printed it out and traveled to an AT&T store in Huntsville, Alabama, to perform the SIM swap.

The council claimed he was an FBI employee “who had broken his phone” and needed a new SIM card before going to an Apple Store, buying a new iPhone and inserting the new SIM card.

This allowed him to obtain the two-factor security reset codes needed to take over the @SECGov account on X. That same day, the council drove to Birmingham, Alabama, and returned the iPhone to another Apple Store.

The indictment says the council googled “SECGOV hack” and “How can I know for sure I’m under investigation by the FBI” and “How long does it take to delete Telegram account” and other related questions with the question of whether he is being investigated by the FBI.

The FBI said it was cooperating with the SEC in its investigation of the case.

At the time of the incident, X confirmed that an investigation determined that the account compromise “did not result from a breach of Party’s systems.”

The X statement, which came from the site’s security team, claimed that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled, which is disputed in the indictment.

The incident caused concern because it came amid a series of account takeovers involving Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant, the deputy leader of the United Kingdom’s Green Party and another Canadian Senator.

After Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased the social media site, he fired much of the security team, allowing cryptocurrency scams to run amok on the platform. Security researchers repeatedly warned that they had contacted X about discovered cybersecurity issues.

Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said the account takeover and tweet caused the price of bitcoin to rise by $1,000 and then fall by $2,000.

“These SIM swap schemes, in which fraudsters trick service providers into giving them control of unsuspecting victims’ phones, can result in devastating financial losses to victims and the loss of sensitive personal and private information,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves

“Here the conspirators are said to have used their illegal access to a telephone to manipulate the financial markets.”

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