An intern at Société Générale is believed to have facilitated the theft of more than EUR1mn (USD1.15mn) from the bank's customers.
A business student who was interning at Société Générale, a leading multinational bank headquartered in France, is believed to have fed information to SIM swappers who stole from 50 customers of the bank, reports Le Parisien. The intern’s arrest prompted officers from France’s fraud police (La Brigade des Fraudes aux Moyens de Paiement, BFMP) to identify a series of alleged accomplices, including one person who specialized in taking control of the phone service of victims.

Using information provided by the intern, the SIM swapper would call the comms providers that provided service to customers of Société Générale. He would pretend to be the legitimate phone user, and that his phone had been lost so a replacement SIM would be issued to him. Having taken control of the victim’s phone service, the SIM swapper would then receive the one-time passwords sent to those numbers by Société Générale. With these codes, the gang were able to withdraw money from the bank accounts of victims. In total, it is believed that more than EUR1mn (USD1.15mn) was stolen this way.

The incoming phone call flashes on a victim’s phone. It may only last a few seconds, but can end with the victim handing over codes that give cybercriminals the ability to hijack their online accounts or drain their crypto and digital wallets.

“This is the PayPal security team here. We’ve detected some unusual activity on your account and are calling you as a precautionary measure,” the caller’s robotic voice says. “Please enter the six-digit security code that we’ve sent to your mobile device.”

• Trezor’s official X account was compromised, likely due to a SIM swap attack, and used to promote a fake token presale.
• ZachXBT and crypto security firm Scam Sniffer identified the fraudulent activity, preventing wider user losses.
• Despite compromising Trezor’s account, the hacker only managed to steal a paltry $8,100.

An “unauthorized party” hijacked the cell phone number of the person running the SEC’s X account before taking over the social media feed and posting messages.

In a statement on Monday, an SEC spokesperson explained that two days after the January 9 account takeover, the government agency spoke to its telecom carrier and discovered that someone “obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent ‘SIM swap’ attack.”