United States. – Europol arrested 10 ‘hackers’ who stole 100 million in cryptocurrencies from celebrities

MADRID, 10 (Portal / EP)

Europol has arrested ten ‘hackers’, eight of whom on Tuesday accused celebrities in the United States of stealing $ 100 million in cryptocurrency through a SIM card theft campaign.

In 2020, a network of ‘hackers’ carried out a series of attacks on thousands of victims, including the internet ‘affected’, famous athletes, musicians and their families.

They used a method known as SIM card hijacking, with which they deactivate one SIM card and associate it with another phone number. They usually pose as companies to obtain this information or from telephone providers.

In this way, they gained illegal access to the victims’ mobile phones and used it to access their applications and change the passwords of their accounts, as reported by Europol in a statement.

Using this technique, they managed to steal a total of $ 100 million in cryptocurrency from their victims, but controlled personal information and even their accounts on social networks.

The arrests of the attackers are a joint operation in the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, Malta and Canada, coordinated by the European police, and followed a year of investigation.

Europol recommends that users take steps to prevent these attacks, including keeping their devices up to date, not responding to suspicious messages, limiting personal information posted on social media, and two instead of SMS codes to online accounts – Includes using validator authentication.