Hackers who stole $330K of crypto sentenced

The Department of Justice announced that Massachusetts men Eric Meiggs, 24, and Declan Harrington, 22, have been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing cryptocurrency through "SIM swapping" and other hacking techniques.

SIM swapping is essentially a way to get around two-factor authentication systems that send a code to access an account. In this scheme, someone tricks a cell phone carrier to reassign the number from their victim's SIM card to their own. They then pose as the victim and request that the provider send a password reset link or authentication code to them. This allows them to log into the victim's accounts.

The pair targeted cryptocurrency executives as well as established social media accounts of people likely to have a lot of cryptocurrency, using the SIM swapping technique to access their online wallets and drain their tokens. It is believed that the two managed to steal about $330,000 worth of cryptocurrency this way from at least 10 victims across the country.

Higgs was sentenced to two years and one day in prison; Harrington was sentenced to two years and seven days in prison.