United States: Europol arrests 10 “ hackers ” who stole 100 million cryptocurrencies from celebrities

Madrid10 (Portaltic / EP)

Europol has arrested ten “hackers”, eight of them this Tuesday, accused of stealing $ 100 million in cryptocurrency through a celebrity SIM stealing campaign in the United States.

Last year, the hacker network carried out a series of attacks on thousands of victims, including online “ influencers ”, famous athletes, musicians and their families.

They used the method known as SIM hijacking, by which the SIM card is deactivated and linked to another phone number. They usually demonstrate as companies to obtain this information or obtain it from phone service providers.

In this way, they obtained illegal access to the victims’ cell phones and used it to access their apps and change their account passwords, Europol explained in a statement.

Using this technology, they were able to steal a total of $ 100 million in cryptocurrency from their victims, but also personal information, and even control their social media accounts.

The arrest of the attackers was a joint operation in the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, Malta and Canada, coordinated by European police, and took place after a year-long investigation.

Europol has recommended that users take steps to prevent these attacks, including updating their devices, not responding to suspicious messages, limiting personal information posted on social media, and using two-factor authentication instead of SMS codes in online accounts.