AT&T isnt scared of latest cryptocurrency SIM-swap allegations, will fight in court – The Next Web

AT&T will dispute allegations that it was negligent after allegedly contributing to the loss of $1.7 million worth of digital assets owned by a customer in the latest SIM swap case.

A spokesman for the company, Jim Greer, told CoinDesk: Its unfortunate that Mr. Shapiro [the customer] experienced this, but we will dispute his allegations. We look forward to presenting our case in court.

The news comes after Seth Shapiro, head of strategy at VideoCoin, adecentralized video encoding, storage, and content distribution system, said the phone company had failed to secure his device when it was hacked in May last year.

According to Shapiro, hackers allegedly gained control of his mobile phone, reset his email, and then breached several accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges, stealing $1 million in the process.

Recent high profile cases reinforce the importance of businesses and consumers taking steps to protect against SIM swap fraud, such as not using mobile phone numbers as the single source of security and authentication, Greer added.

Its not the first time the phone giant madeheadlines in recent weeks. Back in August, it was revealed that AT&T employees unlocked millions of mobile phones to plant malwareand removed the phones from the providers network in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribes.

The details were revealed afterthe US Department of Justice (DoJ) opened a case against Muhammad Fahd, who had been accused of operating a fraudulent operation todisable AT&Ts proprietary software that safeguards phones from being unlocked.

Prior to that, in July, a US federal judge disregarded AT&Ts request to dismiss aa$224 million lawsuitover yet another SIM-swapping incident that led to $24 million in stolen cryptocurrency.

Apress releasepublished at the timesaid the telecom giant would face court over allegationsthat it violated the Federal Communications Act, as well as several other laws, whenhackers used the identity (and telephone account) of cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin in 2017.

AT&T began accepting cryptocurrency as an online payment option at the end of May, claiming to be the first major US mobile carrier to do so.

Published October 29, 2019 09:34 UTC

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AT&T isnt scared of latest cryptocurrency SIM-swap allegations, will fight in court - The Next Web