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Eric Council Jr., the Alabama man arrested after the January 2024 takeover of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account, later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 months in prison. Prosecutors said the account takeover began with a SIM-swap attack and led to a fake post claiming that spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds had been approved.
What happened to the SEC’s X account?
On January 9, 2024, an unauthorized person gained control of the SEC’s official @SECGov X account, formerly Twitter. A post published in the name of then-SEC Chair Gary Gensler falsely stated that the SEC had approved Bitcoin ETFs for listing on registered national securities exchanges.
The SEC later regained control and said the post was unauthorized. The incident concerned the SEC’s social-media account; it should not be described casually as a breach of the agency’s internal network or broader information systems. The Justice Department’s account of the case describes an X-account takeover enabled by a compromised phone number.
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How the SIM-swap attack allegedly worked
A SIM swap, also called SIM hijacking or port-out fraud, occurs when a mobile carrier transfers a victim’s phone number to a SIM card controlled by someone else. If account recovery relies on text messages, the attacker may receive password-reset links and one-time codes sent to that number.
According to the indictment and Council’s later admissions described by the Justice Department, the sequence was:
- A conspirator identified the person whose phone number was associated with the SEC X account.
- Council allegedly received the victim’s personal information and an identification-card template.
- He allegedly produced a fraudulent ID using the victim’s name and photo information.
- He allegedly presented the fake ID at an AT&T store in Huntsville, Alabama.
- The carrier allegedly issued a replacement SIM linked to the victim’s phone number.
- Council allegedly bought an iPhone, inserted the replacement SIM and received account-reset codes.
- He allegedly photographed or shared those codes with other conspirators.
- A co-conspirator allegedly used the code to access the SEC’s X account and publish the false Bitcoin ETF announcement.
- Council allegedly returned the phone for cash after the operation.
This was not necessarily a compromise of the physical phone used by the account holder. The key step was taking control of the phone number and using it in the account-recovery process. A SIM swap can defeat SMS-based multifactor authentication, but it does not automatically defeat authenticator apps, hardware security keys or other forms of authentication.
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What did the fake post say?
The fraudulent message stated, in part: “Today the SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.” The wording falsely presented an official regulatory decision as complete.
The price response shows why control of an official government account can have market consequences. The Justice Department’s figures describe short-term Bitcoin price movements, not total investor losses, market-capitalization changes or proven profits from trading. The official releases also do not establish that Council personally traded Bitcoin or that he designed the entire financial strategy.
Who was Eric Council Jr.?
Council was identified by the Justice Department as an Alabama man. The October 2024 arrest release described him as being from Athens, while the later sentencing release described him as being from Huntsville. Using “Alabama man” avoids treating those differing descriptions as a resolved geographic fact.
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The FBI arrested Council on October 17, 2024, after a grand jury indictment issued on October 10. The original indictment charged conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud. At that stage, the charges were allegations, and Council was presumed innocent.
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The Justice Department said investigators recovered evidence during a June 2024 search of an Athens apartment. The cited evidence included:
- A fraudulent identification card;
- A portable ID-card printer;
- Fake-ID templates on Council’s laptop;
- Searches for terms including “SECGOV hack” and “telegram sim swap”;
- Searches about whether the FBI was investigating him;
- Searches concerning carrier stores, federal identity-theft law and deleting a Telegram account.
Those details came from the indictment, search-warrant evidence and Council’s later admissions. They should be attributed to the Justice Department or court documents rather than presented as independent findings.
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The guilty plea and sentence
The arrest was not the final outcome. Council pleaded guilty on February 10, 2025. In the plea proceeding, he admitted participating in SIM swaps for payment and in the takeover of the SEC’s X account. The Justice Department said he received approximately $50,000 from members of the conspiracy for SIM swaps during the preceding six months.
On May 16, 2025, Council was sentenced to 14 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. The later release described the sentence as arising from his guilty plea in the SEC X-account hacking case. The plea release identified the conviction as conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft, while the original case also included an access-device-fraud charge; the safest summary is that Council pleaded guilty in the case and was later sentenced after admitting his role in the conspiracy.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 9, 2024 | Attackers allegedly used a SIM swap to access the SEC’s X account and posted the fake Bitcoin ETF announcement. |
| January 9, 2024 | Bitcoin rose more than $1,000 after the post and fell more than $2,000 after the SEC corrected it. |
| June 2024 | The FBI searched an Alabama apartment and recovered a fake ID, printer, laptop and related digital evidence. |
| October 10, 2024 | A grand jury indictment was issued. |
| October 17, 2024 | Council was arrested. |
| February 10, 2025 | Council pleaded guilty. |
| May 16, 2025 | Council was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release. |
What the case means for account security
The case illustrates why a phone number should not be treated as the only security barrier for a high-value account.
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- Use stronger authentication: Where supported, prefer a hardware security key or an authenticator app over SMS-only verification.
- Add carrier protections: Use a carrier account PIN, port-out lock or equivalent number-transfer protection.
- Secure account recovery: Recovery procedures can be as important as the normal login. Limit who can reset credentials and require more than a text message for sensitive accounts.
- Separate administration: Government, financial and corporate accounts should use dedicated administrative identities rather than personal phone-based recovery wherever possible.
- Require independent approval: Major announcements should be confirmed through a second trusted channel before publication.
- Watch for warning signs: Sudden loss of mobile service, unexpected password-reset messages or carrier notifications can indicate that a number is being transferred.
The FBI’s SIM-swapping prevention guidance provides additional protective steps. No single measure eliminates risk, but reducing reliance on SMS can make a number takeover less useful to an attacker.
What remains unclear
The official releases do not establish the identities and roles of every alleged co-conspirator, whether anyone made a specific trading profit from the false announcement, the complete authentication configuration used by the SEC’s X account, or whether additional prosecutions followed. Those questions should not be filled in with speculation.
The established outcome is narrower and clearer: a SIM-swap operation was used to take over the SEC’s X account, a false Bitcoin ETF announcement moved Bitcoin’s price, Council was arrested in October 2024, then pleaded guilty and received a 14-month prison sentence in May 2025.
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