Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Friday and was sentenced to three years of supervised release for participating in the official Securities and Exchange Commission X account hack.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced its ruling in a press release. The Council and other hackers mistakenly announced that they took over the SEC X account in 2024 and that the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange funds, or ETFs.
Screenshots of fake SEC posts published by hackers who took over the management of their @Secgov X account on January 9, 2024.
According to the DOJ, the council and his co-conspirators conducted a SIM swap attack on the mobile accounts of those who have access to the SEC's X account, allowing hackers to control their phone numbers. From there, the hacker resets the X account password for the SEC and allows you to control the account.