Twitter Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for $120,000 Crypto Scam

A U.K. citizen who took portion in the huge July 2020 hack of Twitter has been sentenced to 5 many years in prison in the U.S.

Joseph James O’Connor (aka PlugwalkJoe), 24, was awarded the sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, a minimal around a month following he pleaded guilty to the felony techniques. He was arrested in Spain in July 2021.

The notorious Twitter breach allowed the defendant and his co-conspirators to get hold of unauthorized access to backend applications applied by Twitter, abusing them to hijack 130 well known accounts to perpetrate a crypto rip-off that netted them about $120,000 in unlawful revenue.

“In other instances, the co-conspirators marketed entry to Twitter accounts to other people,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) reported. “O’Connor communicated with other people with regards to purchasing unauthorized obtain to a selection of Twitter accounts, like accounts associated with community figures all around the earth.”

The defendant has also been accused of orchestrating SIM swapping attacks to seize handle of users’ Snapchat and TikTok accounts, and in just one situation, even focus on a New York-based mostly cryptocurrency corporation to steal crypto really worth close to $794,000 at the time.

“After stealing and fraudulently diverting the Stolen Cryptocurrency, O’Connor and his co-conspirators laundered it as a result of dozens of transfers and transactions and exchanged some of it for Bitcoin using cryptocurrency trade products and services,” the DoJ mentioned.

“Ultimately, a portion of the Stolen Cryptocurrency was deposited into a cryptocurrency exchange account controlled by O’Connor.”

Also in the checklist of offenses dedicated by O’Connor is cyberstalking two victims, together with a minor in June and July 2020 by falsely boasting that the personal was generating threats to shoot persons in an endeavor to incite a law enforcement reaction.

O’Connor, who explained his crimes had been “silly and pointless,” according to TechCrunch, also faces three several years of supervised launch right after serving his jail time period. He has also been requested to forfeit $794,000.

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Some parts of this article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com