Image Credit – Wave7 Research
Los Angeles-based law firm Greenberg Glusker has won $33 million from T-Mobile for victims of SIM swap attacks.
The company says it has secured a $33 million arbitration award against T-Mobile due to its security lapses that enabled a SIM swap attack that led to cryptocurrency theft. The trial occurred in the fall of 2023 and the firm says that “this is the largest known SIM swap-related award on record.”
Greenberg Glusker’s lawyers say that T-Mobile tried its best to avoid responsibility for the SIM swap attack and even blamed the victim for the ordeal. And even though the award is now public, they accuse T-Mobile of “blocking access to details of its security failures.”
T-Mobile tried every argument to avoid responsibility, but the facts told a different story—T-Mobile failed to take the reasonable steps necessary to fix its porous security system and to protect its vulnerable customers. This trail blazing award is a crucial step in holding phone carriers accountable.
T-Mobile is trying to hide the truth. They fought accountability at every turn, from blaming the victim to obstructing evidence production. The public has a right to know how their phone provider is putting them at risk, and we are confident the court will ensure transparency.
James Molen, Partner Greenberg Glusker Litigation Department, March 2025
Greenberg Glusker’s represented Joseph “Josh” Jones, who lost more than 1,500 Bitcoin and around 60,000 Bitcoin cash – valued at $38 million – as a result of a SIM swap attack. The incident happened on February 21, 2020, and was made possible by a T-Mobile employee agreeing to transfer Jones’ phone number to a SIM card owned by the attacker.
The employee’s maleficence alone should not have been enough to allow the attacker to make changes as Jones PIN-protected his account. This led Jones to believe that the criminal used a backdoor on T-Mobile’s systems.
A 17-year-old diagnosed with ADHD was behind the attack. He was linked to other cybercriminals who hijacked many Twitter accounts in 2020, including those belonging to Elon Musk – who later bought the company and renamed it to X -, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Joe Biden.
