Gary Gensler responds to US lawmakers over SEC’s false spot Bitcoin ETF tweet
The SEC chair penned a letter to four members of the U.S. House of Representatives breaking down the timeline of the commission’s Jan. 9 SIM swap attack.
United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler penned a response to four lawmakers in the House of Representatives over an “unauthorized” tweet sent from the official SEC X account on Jan. 9.
In a Feb. 6 letter to Representatives Patrick McHenry, French Hill, Bill Huizenga and Ann Wagner, Gensler confirmed earlier reports that a hacker had been able to gain access to the SEC’s X account using a “SIM swap” attack, falsely declaring that the commission had approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds for listing and trading on U.S. exchanges. According to the SEC chair, the hacker made two posts using access to the account and liked two tweets before the commission could undo the activity.
“Based on information currently available, [SEC] staff believe that X terminated the unauthorized access to the account by 5:30 pm,” said Gensler. “[L]aw enforcement is currently investigating how the unauthorized party got the carrier to change the SIM for the account and how the party knew which phone number was associated with the account.”
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