The FBI arrested Eric Council Jr. who used the SEC's X account to post a fake BTC ETF approval in January, causing a price surge.

Eric Council Jr. arrested for hacking SEC's Twitter, causing a temporary $1,000 spike in Bitcoin prices with a fake ETF approval post.

Eric Council Jr., 25, was arrested this morning in Athens in connection with a January 2024 unauthorized takeover of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) X account, formerly known as Twitter, in which hackers posted a fake message from the SEC Chair that caused the value of bitcoin (BTC) to spike by $1,000.

The hacker, a 25-year-old Alabama man, pretended to be an FBI employee while at an AT&T store to pull off the 'SIM swap,' which led to access to the SEC's account on X/Twitter.

The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”

The FBI says that Eric Council Jr. used a SIM swapping attack to make a fake X post from @SEC claiming Bitcoin ETFs had been approved.

By Douglas Gillison, Chris Prentice and Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A 25-year-old Alabama man was arrested on Thursday for hacking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's X account this year as part of an alleged conspiracy to manipulate bitcoin prices,

Federal authorities have arrested a man in Athens, Alabama who allegedly helped hack the Securities and Exchange Commission's account on X, formerly Twitter, earlier this year. Why it matters: The arrest is the first indication of who was actually behind the incident,

Eric Council Jr. allegedly hijacked the SEC's X account and then handed control to unnamed co-conspirators, whose fake post drove up bitcoin's price.

The FBI arrested the man it believes hacked and posted from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s X (formerly Twitter) account in January and sent the price of bitcoin soaring.