Clients of the largest telecommunications companies in the US have faced a new kind of cybercrime - the theft of telephone numbers. Hackers kidnap Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT & T numbers to seize control of their accounts in social networks and crypto-currency wallets.

As reported by The New York Times referring to the US Federal Trade Commission, the number of such attacks has increased significantly over the past few years. If in January 2013 there were about 1 thousand. Stealing phone numbers, then in January 2016 - already 2.6 thousand.

Cybercriminals act as follows. First, they find all available information about the victim in social networks, and then call operators on her behalf and convince them to forward all calls and messages to another device. Then scammers change passwords in Facebook, Twitter and other social networks and crypto-currency purses, thereby gaining full control over them.

To get access to accounts in online banking services in this way is much more difficult. In addition, financial organizations can quickly block unauthorized transactions. It is quite another matter for crypto-currency wallets. Since operations with crypto currency like Bitcoin are anonymous, they can not be challenged. Among the victims of hackers are many experts Bitcoin-community, including businessman Joby Weeks (Joby Weeks), who last year hacked kidnapped $ 1 million in the crypto currency.