Teen crook hacked into 75 phones and stole $1M in cryptocurrency: authorities

[Kemarit]

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

[Broly46]

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

[pakhitheboss]

Sim swapping technique is slowly becoming a favourite instrument for commuting financial crime. What can be done to prevent this faud?

Apply for private number with the service provider, your number never gets displayed. There is a cost involved.
Never use the number registered with banks for personal use, use it only for financial transaction.
Use condom USB to charge your phone in public.
Install anti malware on your phone.

You can reduce the chance of getting your phone hacked by following the above mentioned.

[eaLiTy]

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

Good to hear these kind of positive news as the criminals are getting caught left and right for their past and we need harsh punishment and the most important thing is they need to confiscate all the loot plus their interest so that everyone will think twice before going after easy money, i have not seen in the article whether the authorities are returning the asset back or valuation that was stolen during that time.

[kaya11]

Sim swapping technique is slowly becoming a favourite instrument for commuting financial crime. What can be done to prevent this faud?

Apply for private number with the service provider, your number never gets displayed. There is a cost involved.
Never use the number registered with banks for personal use, use it only for financial transaction.
Use condom USB to charge your phone in public.
Install anti malware on your phone.

You can reduce the chance of getting your phone hacked by following the above mentioned.

In some rare cases, if you the sim number you are using is used by a different person also, it literally happened to my cousin, I was calling her number and some other random dude answers the phone and was far away from our place. that is totally weird and told her about it, the next day she changed her number. I never had imagined that even in simcards you are not safe, I was using my phone number for security reasons, like authentication and the likes.

[ChrisPop]

I'm not sure about the american prisons and reinsertion programs, but usually these punishments are not enough or the programs are not good. As we all know it is very hard to change the mind of a grown-up individual. Even if at 19 years old he might be viewed at as a teenager his education and beliefs are 100% messed up. The most important thing is to recover the prejudice, then the punishment. He is a human being like all of us so he deserves a proper re-education, but my opinion is these processes are too superficial, plus we pay a ton of money for them. A reform is needed.

[Lucius]

I think this is a good warning for anyone using their phones as some kind of insurance or extra protection for crypto exchanges. For some people, SIM-swapping is children's play, but as in the present case, they do not know how to hide their tracks and are quickly caught. For me personally, such an option is out of the question, the risk is simply too great. A much better and more secure option is e-mail 2FA, because e-mail is not easy to hack if we stick to some basic security.

What I find bad is the decision to release him until the trial begins, no matter what his passport confiscated. For $1 million theft he should be behind bars, but I guess he is saved by the fact that he is only 19 years old.

[dothebeats]

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

And perhaps add another layer of security for those companies/services that impose such? SIM-based verification is fine and secured, don't get me wrong, but knowing how easy it is for hackers to do such things is troubling. Some may say that "I don't take my phone out in public to text, chat etc. etc." but there's always a risk accompanied with it. For the mean time, device and SIM-based 2FA are the most secure forms of verification for services, but I do hope that they add another layer of security on top of their 2FA for the hackers to not access compromised accounts easily.

Good thing the kid is caught and arrested pronto.

[BeManga]

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

i hope they will also start to hunt those ICO scammers
many people lose a lot of money and interest in crypto because of those scammers
until now many new ICO still pop up and like what happened in the past almost all of them will just leave after taking the investment

[Soldierswitlittlefaith]

I think this is a hot blow on uncle G who seems to be security concious and tend to offer one of the most secured email services.
So, why did gmail not detect unusual activities?


Thanks
Soldierwitlittlefaith

[YuginKadoya]

It is a bad thing to really make an entrance into the Cryptocurrency market with a fraudulent act and it is not going to end well with the market and the one that did the evil deed, so let this be a lesson and stick your feet on legit earning with cryptocurrency there is no short cut to these stuff, even though there are people getting a chance of a lifetime,

Well, the crook that did these is pretty skillful in hacking each phone of his victim this pretty much is a great feat to have in developing it in making a secure wallet than just having it as a potential threat to Holders.

[Yudhisthir]

People can't always depend on others and they should learn to secure their devices themselves. Everyone learns from their own mistakes but a wise one should learn from others as well. It's a really bad idea to keep a large amount of coin in a mobile wallet. Though I too may be careless at times but every place I have more than $1K worth of coins stored. I increase security for that access.

[kryptqnick]

Another day, another bad guy has been caught:

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency — all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims’ phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims’ phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check in weekly with a supervised release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassie’s Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/teen-crook-hacked-into-75-phones-and-stole-1m-in-cryptocurrency-authorities/

It's just a matter of time before these bad eggs are going to be caught, either they make a mistakes or authorities are simply hunting them down. 5-10 years sentence will be enough for this criminals? What do you think?

Okay, let's sort some things out. Is it bad to steal identities and hack wallets? It is. Should this person receive some punishment if found guilty? Yes. But I think it's rather important that he (if it was him) did not steal the money from poor people. $1million from two wallets sounds like rich victims, and being so rich is likely to suggest that a person got an undeserved boost or even stole from the people, basically. Moreover, it's a young and talented person, so it's important not to destroy Yousef but help him use his talent for good (like, to improve phone security or help hack into the phones of terrorists). The aim of a penitentiary system is re-education and then rehabilitation of a person in society, so I hope that'll happen.

[pixie85]

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said.

Just wow. some people really deserve to be robbed. I'm not saying that because they were rich but rich and careless. We poor people take care of every few dollars and there's no way I'd lose as little as $100 like that. If I had 100k it would be behind multiple levels of protection. Those people had so much and didn't care, kept it all online.

All that idiot bought with the money was watches and gay accessories. What a jerk.

[xvids]

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said.

Just wow. some people really deserve to be robbed. I'm not saying that because they were rich but rich and careless. We poor people take care of every few dollars and there's no way I'd lose as little as $100 like that. If I had 100k it would be behind multiple levels of protection. Those people had so much and didn't care, kept it all online.

All that idiot bought with the money was watches and gay accessories. What a jerk.

To be honest I also think that some people deserve to be robbed,
But it isn't the lazy rich people for me it should be the corrupt people those who also steal from the people they should be the one's who deserve to get a taste of their own medicine.

[target]

Reports are not detailed, it would be nice to know how he did the sim swapping for readers to be aware and avoid become a victim too.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said.

Just wow. some people really deserve to be robbed. I'm not saying that because they were rich but rich and careless. We poor people take care of every few dollars and there's no way I'd lose as little as $100 like that. If I had 100k it would be behind multiple levels of protection. Those people had so much and didn't care, kept it all online.

All that idiot bought with the money was watches and gay accessories. What a jerk.

To be honest I also think that some people deserve to be robbed,
But it isn't the lazy rich people for me it should be the corrupt people those who also steal from the people they should be the one's who deserve to get a taste of their own medicine.

It didn't mention where the coins are stored probably in the exchange, those phones probably belong to someone who does trading a lot. $1M for two accounts which both of them must have been good at doing their craft but carelessly become a victim of sim swapping.

[Gabrics]

Always wondered how a phone company just cuts of a live SIM because someone calls/shows up? I mean even if the clerk is "in it", they shouldn't have the right. The system should at least auto-call/text the live SIM and ask "hey you want to be cut off?"

If they report the SIM stolen they should limit outgoing calls/text, but still give the notice above with some deadline.

If I recall correctly some people already suing US providers for negligence.

[figmentofmyass]

This sim swapping hack is seriously horrible, nearly all services use sim ID for verification, it’s just a matter of time the entire banking to be plagued with sim swapping hacks too, any counter measure would be futile.

i can understand why exchanges might want to verify phone number as an ID verification method, especially if they don't require actual KYC documentation. i just wish they more actively discouraged it as a 2FA method.

i suppose they are in a tough position. if they discourage SMS 2FA in favor of TOTP or UTF, some customers will get superior security but some will opt for no 2FA at all due to the inconvenience. people are very used to the idea of SMS verification because lots of internet services and banking platforms use it.

[meanwords]

Justice at last. I was a victim of sim swapping when Bitcoin was still nearing its all-time high. It was a frustrating time because how can they do that? How is the sim provider allowing this kind of scams? So after that, I just stop using my sim as verification for my cryptocurrency related activities. Maybe use it sometimes for my fb or twitter acc.

[Yaunfitda]

Yes, he should be put to jail minimum ten years. Because he really deserves that for stealing someone's money and spending it like for jewelries, lol, total jerk he is. I do hope that people in crypto will always find justice when we loss our money from this online hackers. They really making a run on us and we all know that billions of our money are being stolen already since inception.