UK Man Pleads Guilty To Hijacking Twitter Accounts Of Elon Musk, Joe Biden And Others

A British man has admitted to his role in a high-profile social media hack, a scheme that involved stealing the Twitter accounts of prominent U.S. political and corporate figures like Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and others.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Joseph James O’Connor confessed in a New York court to hacking into Twitter, which resulted in him impersonating influential personalities, reported Bloomberg.  

The hack included names like former U.S. President Obama, current President Joe Biden, Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Musk, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corp MSFT founded Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, among others as part of a Bitcoin BTC/USD scam. 

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Prosecutors have stated that the crimes committed by the 23-year-old, who is also known as “PlugwalkJoe,” involved SIM swaps, where phone numbers are transferred to new devices to bypass security measures, but the extent of his actions surpassed this and led to his extradition from Spain on April 26.

As per the chargesheet, O’Connor admitted to committing several cybercrimes, including manipulating social media accounts, carrying out online blackmail and engaging in cyberstalking. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 23, the report noted.  

“O’Connor used his sophisticated technological abilities for malicious purposes — conducting a complex SIM swap attack to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency, hacking Twitter, conducting computer intrusions to take over social media accounts, and even cyberstalking two victims, including a minor,” said Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. 

Why It’s Important: In July 2020, it was reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was probing a massive hack on Twitter which led to the hijacking of several high-profile verified accounts. 

The attackers promoted a scam after taking over the accounts, making away with $100,000 in Bitcoin from unsuspecting account followers.

At the time, reports emerged that the microblogging site was compromised by a company insider. 

Now, the Department of Justice alleges that O’Connor conspired with others. His associates utilized social engineering tactics to persuade a Twitter employee to provide access to administrative tools, ultimately used to seize control of the accounts.

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