Early Bitcoin investor is suing AT&T for $224 million
Californian Michael Terpin has written a 69-page complaint against AT&T in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, in which he claims he lost $24 million of crypto after AT&T allegedly allowed the hacker to obtain unauthorized access to his phone account.
Michael Terpin co-founded an investment group called BitAngels in 2013, which was the world's first distributed veteran entrepreneur and angel investor group, and he was also involved in the DApps venture fund. Terpin claims that a hacker made up some kind of sob story and convinced the AT&T employee to give out his phone number or account information without requiring an ID or any proof of identification.
Terpin claims that AT&T did something as bad as giving out his hotel room number and telling them the code to the hotel safe deposit box. Terpin is furious and is trying to sue AT&T for an extra $200 million in punitive damages in addition to the $24 million he lost in the hack.
Apparently Terpin's account was easily able to be hacked because he was using 2-Factor Authentication which can be easily hacked if you are securing your account only through a mobile phone number. 2-Factor Authentication usually takes the form of text messages in order to supposedly secure your account even more, but with 2-Factor Authentication through SMS it is possible for a hacker to gain access to your account if they are able to clone your phone or call your phone company with a sob story etc.
Luckily, most 2-FA authentication is moving away from SMS messages and moving towards app authenticators such as Google Authenticator and Authy which are significantly more secure because the authentication codes can be generated offline even in Airplane mode. Unfortunately these authenticators aren't unhackable, but they are more frustrating for hackers and would take more time to accomplish. This story to me seems a bit strange to me because how could someone with nearly $24 million of crypto not be overly paranoid or extremely cautious about their security. Also, AT&T is prepared to challenge him in court and they believe they will win.
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That's insane, an insane amount to sue for when he only lost $24 mil in crypto
I am NOT NOT agreed with you as its not LOST they ROBBED him aka stolen if AT&T found guilty it could be 400M upto $500M as AT&T is not a guy or theif !! its Big US Telecom company as LA has damn history about that thing if I knows him Mike Terpin if Mike has proof of it then I would suggest big amount at least $400 - $500M if you can't believe in it see this !!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698740/RJ-Reynolds-tobacco-company-hit-23-6B-judgment-punitive-damages-widow-chain-smoker-sued-company-death.html
This kind of mistakes are expensive for both parties, and now they will for sure review their securities protocols, so it´s a gain for the rest, not for Terpin sadly =)
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Good information
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coooooooooooool
I used Bitcoin buying hosting same .. thanks for sharing this post
Wow thats so stupid why would you give awy his phone number and safe number and all that personal stuff. Holy moly
I hope ATT loses this actually. They should be taken to task for failing to secure a customer's private data over the service they charge out the arse for.
I agree, I mean how in the world does this guy not have better security? But I agree, AT&T should have done more.
Indeed
hacking is a big fuckn threat, it is the new form of stealing and forgery
Firstly,Thank you so much for sharing the audio!,
Though the crypto market has been achieving a drastic demanding prices, it's security are the main problem the has to be Remedied..!..