British hacker convicted of 2020 Twitter attack: 5 years in prison

A British citizen involved in the massive Twitter hack that took place in July 2020 has been sentenced to five years in prison in the United States. Joseph James O'Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, 24, received his sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, just over a month after pleading guilty to the crimes charged against him. O'Connor was arrested in Spain in July 2021.

The infamous attack on Twitter

The Twitter breach allowed the defendant and his accomplices to gain unauthorized access to Twitter's internal tools, misusing them to hijack 130 popular accounts in order to perpetrate a crypto scam that netted them approximately $120,000 in illegal profits. In other incidents, the accomplices sold access to Twitter accounts to other individuals. O'Connor has had interactions with others involving the purchase of unauthorized access to various Twitter accounts, including those associated with public figures around the world.

O'Connor and cryptocurrency fraud

The defendant has also been accused of orchestrating SIM-swapping attacks to take control of users' Snapchat and TikTok accounts, and in one case, even targeted a New York-based cryptocurrency company to steal cryptocurrencies worth approximately $794,000 at the moment. “After stealing and fraudulently hijacking the stolen cryptocurrencies, O'Connor and his accomplices laundered it through dozens of transfers and transactions and exchanged some of it for Bitcoin using cryptocurrency exchange services,” the US Department of Justice said. (DoJ). “Finally, some of the stolen cryptocurrencies were deposited in a cryptocurrency exchange account controlled by O'Connor.”

More crimes and legal consequences for O'Connor

In addition to this, O'Connor was accused of cyberstalking two victims, including a minor, in June and July 2020, falsely claiming that the individual was threatening to shoot people in an attempt to elicit a response from state forces. 'order. O'Connor, who called his crimes "stupid and pointless" according to TechCrunch, will also face three years of probation after serving his prison sentence. The forfeiture of $794,000 was also ordered.