{"id":52319,"date":"2021-11-04T13:43:37","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T11:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=52319"},"modified":"2025-09-03T09:39:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:39:50","slug":"hackers-steal-about-784000-in-crypto-from-a-crypto-company-via-sim-swapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/hackers-steal-about-784000-in-crypto-from-a-crypto-company-via-sim-swapping\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackers steal about $784,000 in crypto from a crypto company via SIM swapping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>British resident Joseph James O\u2019Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, has been charged in connection with a fraud scheme that resulted in assets stolen from a cryptocurrency company totaling around $784,000 at the time of the theft. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/pr\/us-attorney-announces-indictment-charging-uk-citizen-conspiracy-commit-computer\">U.S. Department of Justice<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>According to investigators, from March through May 2019 O\u2019Connor and associates orchestrated a SIM-swapping scheme and stole crypto assets from a U.S. company that provides infrastructure for a cryptocurrency wallet and Bitcoin exchanges. Its name is not disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>In such an attack, the attackers gain control over victims\u2019 phone numbers and access to their messages and calls, enabling them to bypass multi-factor authentication.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Connor and his accomplices compromised the device of one of the firm\u2019s executives and drained from clients\u2019 wallets around 770 BCH, 6,363 LTC, 407 ETH and more than 7 BTC.<\/p>\n<p>The stolen assets were laundered, and some were exchanged for bitcoins through cryptocurrency exchanges. A portion of the funds ended up in O\u2019Connor\u2019s account on a crypto exchange.<\/p>\n<p>In July he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/man-arrested-connection-alleged-role-twitter-hack\">arrested<\/a> in Spain on suspicion of involvement in the hacking of numerous celebrity Twitter accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier ForkLog reported that a California resident <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/california-man-loses-about-27000-in-bitcoin-to-sim-swap-attack\">lost $27 000<\/a> in Bitcoin due to a SIM swap.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog&#8217;s bitcoin news on our <a href=\"\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"\u201c_blank\u201d\" rel=\"\u201cnofollow\u201d noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analytics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British resident Joseph James O\u2019Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, has been charged in connection with a fraud scheme that resulted in assets stolen from a cryptocurrency company totaling around $784,000 at the time of the theft. The U.S. Department of Justice said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,1688],"class_list":["post-52319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-sim-swapping"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"24","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52321,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52319\/revisions\/52321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}