AT&T faces legal action over SIM-swap attack on crypto investors

BlockBeats news, October 3, according to Cointelegraph, AT&T will once again face charges of failing to protect user information, and the partial summary judgment in its favor was overturned on appeal.

The case began in 2020, when crypto investor Michael Terpin sued a high school graduate who had just graduated, accusing him of stealing Terpin's $24 million worth of cryptocurrency through SIM card swaps. Through SIM card swaps, Pinsky bypassed the two-factor authentication that protected one of Terpin's crypto wallets.

In 2018, when Ellis Pinsky was only 15 years old, he and his accomplices bribed an AT&T employee to transfer Terpin's SIM card information to a blank card on their phones. Subsequently, the long and complicated legal battle earned Pinsky the nickname "Baby Al Capone" and involved him in a potentially groundbreaking case against AT&T.

According to Terpin's lead attorney, Pierce O'Donnell, Terpin will now seek "$24 million plus at least $14 million in interest and attorneys' fees, for a total of at least $45 million in damages from AT&T."