A British hacker pleaded guilty Tuesday to his role in a series of cyberattacks, the most spectacular of which in 2020 targeted the Twitter accounts of figures such as Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
Joseph O'Connor, 23, was arrested in Spain in July 2021 and extradited to the US on April 26, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
In addition to the Twitter attack, he is accused of hacking TikTok and Snapchat accounts, as well as online harassment and blackmail.
"O'Connor exploited his technological abilities for malicious purposes (…) to steal cryptocurrency, hack Twitter, take control of social media accounts and molest two victims, one of whom was a minor," said prosecutor Damian Williams who has taken over the case.
On July 15, 2020 Twitter became the target of a major attack with the hacking of 130 very popular accounts.
45 of them – including the account of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos – posted the message: “I decided to help my community. All bitcoins sent to my address down here will be doubled."
Those messages, which were seen by about 350 million users, were quickly deleted, but the scam netted the hackers more than $100.000 in cryptocurrency, according to the investigation.
Justice followed the trail of bitcoins and quickly tracked down three young hackers: Graham Clark, an American who was then 17, Mason Sheppard, a 19-year-old Briton, and Nima Fazeli, a 22-year-old American.
The 17-year-old, who has pleaded guilty to the charges against him, is considered the mastermind of the attack. After an agreement with the authorities, he was sentenced in 2022 to three years in prison.
The other two men, as well as O'Connor, have been charged, with the latter facing more than 70 years in prison.
Cyber security experts immediately referred to Joseph O'Connor, better known as PlugWalkJoe.
Immediately after his arrest, the American actress Bella Thorne revealed that he had threatened her to publish nude photos of her that he had stolen in 2019 from her Snapchat account.
Source: RES-EAP
