Joseph James O’Connor, a 23-year-old British man, has admitted to being involved in a hacking scheme targeting prominent Twitter accounts, including Barack Obama and Elon Musk.
O’Connor was extradited from Spain on April 26 after being arrested nearly two years ago. He pleaded guilty in a New York court earlier this week.
Read more about this case here: US indicts Briton for SIM swap crypto theft
In addition to the Twitter breach, O’Connor’s hacking group used SIM card swaps to access various social media accounts of TikTok star Addison Ray and actress Bella Thorne, exposing personal information. . The group also used this method to steal $794,000 worth of his cryptocurrency from a New York cryptocurrency company.
Known online as ‘PlugwalkJoe’, the British man faces up to 20 years in prison for computer hacking, extortion, stalking, wire fraud and money laundering.
“Given the amount of cybercrime affecting organizations and individuals, this is just a small step in the right direction,” said Mike Parkin, senior technical engineer at Vulcan Cyber. Information security on mail.
Security experts say convictions may be a marginal deterrent for casual criminals in the West, but they are minor at best and deter cybercriminals in countries not friendly to the West. It will be of no use to you.
“These criminal prosecutions are necessary but do not address the underlying issues that enable these criminal acts,” Parkin added. “It is much better to dedicate resources to preventing incidents (better cybersecurity) than cleaning up after the fact (investigation and prosecution).”
The conviction comes months after a group of British law enforcement announced they had successfully dismantled a large money-laundering operation, with the last three members of the gang convicted in March. I received
Editorial image credit: max.ku / Shutterstock.com
