Man Pleads Guilty to Hacking Twitter Accounts of Elon Musk and Joe Biden in Bitcoin Scam
Joseph James O'Connor pleads guilty in high-profile Twitter hack case; accused of being part of a Bitcoin scam in 2020.
Because Bitcoin
May 10, 2023
Business Insider reported that the US Department of Justice reported that Joseph James O'Connor, a 23-year-old British citizen, pleaded guilty in a New York court on Tuesday for his involvement in the massive 2020 Twitter hacking scheme that targeted high-profile users like Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian, and Elon Musk, resulting in 130 accounts being compromised.
The hackers used the accounts to promote a bitcoin scam, promising to double all funds sent to them within 30 minutes, and even compromised the account of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. O'Connor was arrested in Spain two years ago and was recently extradited to the US.
During a coordinated social engineering attack on some of its employees who had access to internal systems and tools, Twitter temporarily prevented all verified accounts from tweeting. Joseph James O'Connor, along with his co-conspirators, was involved in several other schemes using SIM swaps, including cyberstalking, stealing crypto from a company, and posting self-promotion videos on TikTok.
O'Connor pleaded guilty to multiple counts of stalking, computer intrusion, extortion, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and is facing a maximum sentence of more than 70 years in prison.
Resources: