SEC Account Hack: Sentencing Details

On Friday, Eric Council Jr., 26, received a 14-month prison sentence, along with three years of supervised release, due to his involvement in hacking the official Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account.

The US Department of Justice shared the news in a recent press release. Council and his accomplices falsely claimed that they had taken control of the SEC’s account in 2024, asserting that the agency had endorsed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

As per the DOJ, Council and his partners conducted a SIM swap attack targeting the mobile accounts of individuals with access to the SEC’s X account. This maneuver gave the hackers control over those phone numbers, enabling them to reset the SEC’s X account password and gain access to it.