AT&T says a lawsuit over a $1.8 million crypto hack fails to show how the U.S. telecom giant was responsible.
The case, brought by VideoCoinâs head of strategy, Seth Shapiro, in October, alleges that, in 2018, AT&T employees were responsible for transferring control of his phone number to hackers, who used it as part of a SIM-swap scam that drained his exchange accounts of more than $1.8 million worth of cryptocurrencies.
In a Jan. 22 filing in support of its December motion to dismiss the case, AT&T says Shapiroâs allegation has a âfundamental problemâ because it âjumpsâ from hackers gaining his phone number to the withdrawal of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
With the hackers allegedly having paid off AT&T employees â whoâve since been fired and are being prosecuted in criminal court â to gain control of his phone, Shapiroâs lawyer, Andrew Calderon, has accused the company of âsystemic negligence.â He previously told CoinDesk: âAT&T has a rich and troubling heritage of taking less than adequate measures to protect its customersâ data from unauthorized access.â
But according to AT&Tâs December dismissal motion, Shapiroâs allegation relies on âbare thin conclusion.â Hackers needed more than a phone number to access exchange accounts, the dismissal filing reads, and the plaintiff has not said how hackers knew about his accounts and how they knew he was an AT&T customer. The motion also says Shapiro has not conclusively shown how the fault for the hack lies at AT&Tâs door.
Wednesdayâs filing further claims: âMr. Shapiroâs request that this Court assume that the SIM swap must have led logically and foreseeably to the theft is unfounded.â The filing also refutes the plaintiffâs claim of âintentional misconductâ for disclosing information, like a Social Security number and exchange passwords, that AT&T says it would never have ever had in its possession.
The firmâs lawyers also highlight that Shapiro has not said whether his phone was used for any two-factor authentication mechanisms on his exchange accounts.
âMr. Shapiro blames AT&T for the theft, but he is wrong, and his complaint states no viable claim against AT&T under any theory,â Decemberâs filing reads. The complaint âoverreaches at every turn to blame AT&T for conduct that it did not controlâ and the lawyers suggest âMr. Shapiroâs own negligenceâ could be to blame for the hack.
AT&T further states in the latest filing that, in his opposition to the motion to dismiss, Shapiro âignores critical holes in his allegationsâ and is requiring the court to make âwild guesses.â
Shapiroâs opposition to the motion to dismiss, filed in early January, states: âUnable to deny its involvement in these criminal acts, AT&T marshals a host of red herring, whataboutism inquiries to make it appear as though the theft of Mr. Shapiroâs funds was utterly unforeseeable and unrelated to the SIM swap.â
AT&T faces a similar case brought by crypto investor Michael Terpin in 2018, who claimed he lost $24 million in a similar SIM-swap hack. A Los Angeles court said in a ruling last summer the telecom company must answer the lawsuit.
In the case of Shapiro, the court will hear AT&Tâs motion for dismissal in the Central District of California, Western Division, Los Angeles on Feb. 18.
The leader of the hacking group responsible for Shapiroâs loss, 21-year-old Joel Oritz, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after pleading no contest to charges of orchestrating 13 SIM swaps in April 2019.
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