Security News

The Ukrainian Security Service has announced that since the start of the war with Russia, it has discovered and shut down five bot farms with over 100,000 fake social media accounts spreading fake news. The network, which operated in Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ternopil, and Zakarpattia, aimed to discourage Ukrainian citizens and instill panic by distributing false information about the Russian invasion and the status of the defenders.

The independent communications authority of South Africa has submitted a radical proposal to tackle the problem of SIM swapping attacks in the country, suggesting that local service providers should keep biometric data of cellphone number owners. SIM swapping attacks are a multi-million problem for all countries and service providers globally, allowing threat actors to port people's numbers to attackers' SIM cards, essentially hijacking the subscriber accounts.

Spain's National Police Agency, the Policía Nacional, said last week it dismantled an unnamed cybercriminal organization and arrested eight individuals in connection with a series of SIM swapping attacks that were carried out with the goal of financial fraud. The suspects of the crime ring masqueraded as trustworthy representatives of banks and other organizations and used traditional phishing and smishing techniques to obtain personal information and bank data of victims before draining money from their accounts.

FBI: Criminals escalating SIM swap attacks to steal millions of dollars. The FBI says criminals have escalated SIM card swap attacks to hijack victims' phone numbers and steal millions of dollars from fiat and virtual currency accounts.

The attacks, which lead to 2FA defeat and account takeover, have accelerated by several hundred percent in one year, leading to thousands of drained bank accounts. SIM-swapping - the practice of duping mobile carriers into switching a target's phone services to an attacker-controlled phone - is on the rise, the Feds are warning - leading to millions in losses for consumers who found their bank accounts drained and other accounts taken over.

Spanish National Police has arrested eight suspects allegedly part of a crime ring who drained bank accounts in a series of SIM swapping attacks. The first case of fraud attributed to this particular SIM swapping gang is from March 2021, when the police received two complaints about fraudulent transfers not performed by the account holders.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says criminals have escalated SIM swap attacks to steal millions by hijacking victims' phone numbers. "From January 2018 to December 2020, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received 320 complaints related to SIM swapping incidents with adjusted losses of approximately $12 million. In 2021, IC3 received 1,611 SIM swapping complaints with adjusted losses of more than $68 million."

T-Mobile confirmed that recent reports of a new data breach are linked to notifications sent to a "Very small number of customers" who fell victim to SIM swap attacks. SIM swapping makes it possible for attackers to take control of a target's mobile phone number by tricking or bribing the carrier's employees to reassign the numbers to attacker-controlled SIM cards.

SIM swapping attacks have been reported in the media since 2017. With the ENISA Report - Countering SIM-Swapping, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity gives an overview of how SIM swapping attacks work and of the extent to which Member States are affected.

A sixth member associated with an international hacking group known as The Community has been sentenced in connection with a multimillion-dollar SIM swapping conspiracy, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Garrett Endicott, 22, from the U.S. state of Missouri, who pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft following an indictment in 2019, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and ordered to pay an amount totaling $121,549.