A SIM swap assault on the U.S. SEC’s Twitter account led to a false tweet about Bitcoin ETF approval, briefly disrupting the cryptocurrency market.
On Jan. 10, the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) skilled a cybersecurity breach, leading to a deceptive tweet about spot Bitcoin ETFs from its official account. This incident, attributable to a SIM swap assault, briefly stirred confusion within the cryptocurrency markets.
The SEC defined the state of affairs in a statement: “The unauthorized celebration obtained management of the SEC cellphone quantity related to the @SECGov account in an obvious ‘SIM swap’ assault.” This allowed the attacker to reset the Twitter account’s password and put up the false announcement.
The SEC additionally admitted that multi-factor authentication, a vital safety characteristic, was disabled for its Twitter account since July 2023. This resolution contrasts with the final cybersecurity suggestions beforehand endorsed by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
The influence of the false tweet was important but non permanent. Cryptocurrency markets reacted sharply, highlighting the sensitivity of those markets to regulatory information. Nevertheless, the state of affairs was shortly rectified with the SEC and Gensler follow-up clarifications. The official approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs was announced the following day.
The incident has drawn consideration from lawmakers, together with Senators J.D. Vance and Thom Tillis, who expressed concerns in regards to the SEC’s cybersecurity measures.