{"id":860672,"date":"2025-07-07T01:12:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T06:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/07\/us-man-who-hacked-secs-x-account-to-spike-bitcoin-price-sentenced-to-prison\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T01:12:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T06:12:32","slug":"us-man-who-hacked-secs-x-account-to-spike-bitcoin-price-sentenced-to-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/07\/us-man-who-hacked-secs-x-account-to-spike-bitcoin-price-sentenced-to-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"US man who hacked SEC\u2019s X account to spike Bitcoin price sentenced to prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoins <\/p>\n

\n

Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release on Friday for participating in the hack of the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing in a press release<\/a>. Council and other hackers took over the SEC\u2019s X account in 2024 to falsely announce that the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange traded funds, or ETFs, which shot up the price of the cryptocurrency before later dropping.<\/p>\n

\"bitcoins
A screenshot of the fake SEC post published by hackers who took over control of the @SECGov X account on January 9, 2024<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to the DOJ, Council and his co-conspirators performed a SIM swap<\/a> attack against the cellphone account of a person who had access to the SEC\u2019s X account, which allowed the hackers to take control of their phone number. From there, the hackers reset the password of the SEC\u2019s X account, granting them control of the account.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release on Friday for participating in the hack of the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing in a press release. Council and other hackers took over the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":860673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1769,92677],"tags":[11476],"class_list":{"0":"post-860672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hacked","8":"category-secs","9":"tag-bitcoins"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}