A 24-year-old hacker who masterminded several July 2020 hacks on Twitter has been caught and sent to prison. He, alongside many others had made attempts to hijack the Twitter accounts of more than 130 famous people. Joseph James O’Connor, 24, has received a five-year jail term after he pleaded guilty to his involvement in cyber crimes.
Some targets of the cyber attacks included United States President Joe Biden, American model Kim Kardashian, and Tesla/Twitter CEO Elon Musk. The 24-year-old cyber criminal was arraigned before a New York federal court where he was sentenced to his five-year imprisonment term.
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Among his crimes were cyber stalking and hacking targeted at the social media account of several high-profile individuals. While speaking in court, O’Connor described his crimes as “stupid and pointless” and also tendered an apology to his victims.
O’Connor, popularly known by his social media handle PlugWalkJoe, belonged to a group that hacked into the Twitter accounts of many influential individuals and company’s including Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Apple, and Binance. He further used the accounts for most cryptocurrency-related crimes that occured in July 2020.
Earlier this year, in April, O’Connor was extradited from Spain do the US where he awaited trial for threatening, extorting, and harassing his victims.
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One of the tweets he made on the U.S. President’s account read: “All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back double! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes. Enjoy!”
To tackle the problem at the time, Twitter disabled the the tweet feature on all accounts and also deactivated all verified accounts in a bid to find those responsible. In his plea, O’Connor agreed to repay all his victims and forfeit a out $794,000.
