Security News > 2024 > March > Former telecom manager admits to doing SIM swaps for $1,000
A former manager at a telecommunications company in New Jersey pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges for accepting money to perform unauthorized SIM swaps that enabled an accomplice to hack customer accounts.
SIM swapping is an unauthorized porting of a targeted person's phone number to another physical SIM card or eSIM chip controlled by the attacker.
Telecom service providers have now implemented measures to prevent such arbitrary number porting events without the involvement or authorization of the owner.
An announcement and court documents published earlier this week by the U.S. Department of Justice explain that Katz performed the SIM swaps between May 10 and 20, 2021, while he was a manager for a telecom firm.
For carrying the unauthorized number porting, Katz received $1,000 in Bitcoin per SIM swap, plus an percentage of the profits earned from the illicit access to the victims' devices.
SIM swappers hijacking phone numbers in eSIM attacks.