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Eric Meiggs, 25, of Brockton, and Declan Harrington, 22, of Rockport, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of conspiracy, four counts of wire fraud, one count of computer fraud and abuse and one count of aggravated identity theft, the US Attorney for Massachusetts said. Harrington also copped to an additional count of wire fraud.
The men admitted they were part of a group who targeted people they believed had significant amounts of cryptocurrency or "high value" social media account names with an attack called "SIM-swapping," investigators said.
A SIM-swap attack is where people like Meiggs and Harrington convince a cell phone carrier to reassign a victim's cell phone number from the SIM-card in their phones to ones controlled by Meiggs and Harrington, the US Attorney said. Once this happens, the cybercriminals can change passwords and access someone's accounts without having to hack the system.
Meiggs and Harrington did this along with others to go through their victims' digital lives, social media accounts, and crypto wallets, the US Attorney said. Investigators believe they did this to at least 10 people around the country and stole — or tried to steal — $530,000 in cryptocurrency, officials said.
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