Joseph James “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, a 24-year-old from the UK who earned his quarter-hour of fame by taking part within the July 2020 hack of Twitter, has been sentenced to 5 years in a U.S. jail. That will appear to be harsh punishment for a short and really public cyber pleasure experience. However O’Connor additionally pleaded responsible in a separate investigation involving a years-long spree of cyberstalking and cryptocurrency theft enabled by “SIM swapping,” a criminal offense whereby fraudsters trick a cell supplier into diverting a buyer’s cellphone calls and textual content messages to a tool they management.
Joseph “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, in a photograph from a Globe Newswire press launch Sept. 02, 2020, pitching O’Connor as a cryptocurrency knowledgeable and advisor.
On July 16, 2020 — the day after a few of Twitter’s most recognizable and common customers had their accounts hacked and used to tweet out a bitcoin rip-off — KrebsOnSecurity noticed that a number of social media accounts tied to O’Connor appeared to have inside information of the intrusion. That story additionally famous that due to COVID-19 lockdowns on the time, O’Connor was caught on an indefinite trip at a preferred resort in Spain.
Not lengthy after the Twitter hack, O’Connor was quoted in The New York Occasions denying any involvement. “I don’t care,” O’Connor informed The Occasions. “They’ll come arrest me. I might snort at them. I haven’t executed something.”
Talking with KrebsOnSecurity through Instagram immediate message simply days after the Twitter hack, PlugwalkJoe demanded that his actual identify be stored out of future weblog posts right here. After he was informed that couldn’t be promised, he remarked that some individuals in his circle of pals had been recognized to rent others to ship bodily beatings on individuals they didn’t like.
O’Connor was nonetheless in Spain a 12 months later when prosecutors within the Northern District of California charged him with conspiring to hack Twitter. On the identical time, prosecutors within the Southern District of New York charged O’Connor with a formidable array of cyber offenses involving the exploitation of social media accounts, on-line extortion, and cyberstalking, and the theft of cryptocurrency then valued at almost USD $800,000.
In late April 2023, O’Connor was extradited from Spain to face fees in the US. Two weeks later, he entered responsible pleas in each California and New York, admitting to all ten prison fees levied in opposition to him. On June 23, O’Connor was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
PlugwalkJoe was a part of a neighborhood that specialised in SIM-swapping victims to take over their on-line identities. Unauthorized SIM swapping is a scheme through which fraudsters trick or bribe staff at wi-fi cellphone firms into redirecting the goal’s textual content messages and cellphone calls to a tool they management.
From there, the attackers can reset the password for any of the sufferer’s on-line accounts that permit password resets through SMS. SIM swapping additionally lets attackers intercept one-time passwords wanted for SMS-based multi-factor authentication (MFA).
O’Connor admitted to conducting SIM swapping assaults to take management over monetary accounts tied to a number of cryptocurrency executives in Could 2019, and to stealing digital foreign money presently valued at greater than $1.6 million.
PlugwalkJoe additionally copped to SIM-swapping his means into the Snapchat accounts of a number of feminine celebrities and threatening to launch nude pictures discovered on their telephones.
Victims who refused to surrender social media accounts or undergo extortion calls for had been usually visited with “swatting assaults,” whereby O’Connor and others would falsely report a capturing or hostage scenario within the hopes of tricking police into visiting probably deadly pressure on a goal’s tackle.
Prosecutors stated O’Connor even swatted and cyberstalked a 16-year-old woman, sending her nude pictures and threatening to rape and/or homicide her and her household.
Within the case of the Twitter hack, O’Connor pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit pc intrusions, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit cash laundering.
The account “@shinji,” a.okay.a. “PlugWalkJoe,” tweeting a screenshot of Twitter’s inner instruments interface, on July 15, 2020.
To resolve the case in opposition to him in New York, O’Connor pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit pc intrusion, two counts of committing pc intrusions, making extortive communications, two counts of stalking, and making threatening communications.
Along with the jail time period, O’Connor was sentenced to 3 years of supervised launch, and ordered to pay $794,012.64 in forfeiture.
To be clear, the Twitter hack of July 2020 didn’t contain SIM-swapping. Slightly, Twitter stated the intruders tricked a Twitter worker over the cellphone into offering entry to inner instruments.
Three others had been charged together with O’Connor within the Twitter compromise. The alleged mastermind of the hack, then 17-year-old Graham Ivan Clarke from Tampa, Fla., pleaded responsible in 2021 and agreed to serve three years in jail, adopted by three years probation.
This story is nice reminder about the necessity to reduce your reliance on the cell phone firms for securing your on-line id. This implies lowering the variety of methods your life may very well be turned the other way up if somebody had been to hijack your cell phone quantity.
Most on-line providers require customers to validate a cell phone quantity as a part of organising an account, however some providers will allow you to take away your cellphone quantity after the actual fact. These providers that do you allow you to take away your cellphone quantity or disable SMS/cellphone requires account restoration in all probability additionally supply safer multi-factor authentication choices, resembling app-based one-time passwords and safety keys. Take a look at 2fa.listing for a listing of multi-factor choices obtainable throughout a whole lot of common websites and providers.
