‘PlugwalkJoe’ pleads responsible for the large 2020 Twitter hack and different crimes

In some cases, the co-conspirators took management themselves and used that management to launch a scheme to defraud different Twitter customers. In different cases, the co-conspirators bought entry to Twitter accounts to others. O’CONNOR communicated with others concerning buying unauthorized entry to quite a lot of Twitter accounts, together with accounts related to public figures around the globe. Quite a lot of Twitter accounts focused by O’CONNOR have been subsequently transferred away from their rightful house owners. O’CONNOR agreed to buy unauthorized entry to at least one Twitter account for $10,000.

PlugwalkJoe additionally took over an unnamed TikTok consumer’s account in 2020, and the main points listed recommend the unnamed sufferer is prime TikToker Addison Rae. On the time, Rae’s TikTok account title modified to “joeandzak1” and her bio learn “plugwalkjoe zak n crippin.” The DOJ additionally says PlugwalkJoe and co-conspirators focused the Snapchat account of one other high-profile consumer in 2019 and threatened to launch their personal photos to the general public. On this case, the sufferer seems to be Bella Thorne, who publicly thanked the FBI for arresting O’Connor.

A separate case from the Southern District of New York accuses O’Connor and conspirators of SIM swaps, or the act of gaining management of a sufferer’s cellphone quantity, as a part of a scheme that resulted within the theft of $794,000 in crypto from an unnamed, Manhattan-based firm that “supplied pockets infrastructure and associated software program to cryptocurrency.”

“O’Connor used his refined technological skills for malicious functions — conducting a fancy SIM swap assault to steal giant quantities of cryptocurrency, hacking Twitter, conducting laptop intrusions to take over social media accounts, and even cyberstalking two victims, together with a minor sufferer,” US Legal professional Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York says in an announcement.

O’Connor was arrested in Spain in 2021 on a number of fees, together with three counts of conspiracy to deliberately entry a pc with out authorization, one rely of constructing threatening communications, two counts of cyberstalking, and extra. He’s set to be sentenced on June twenty third and has agreed to forfeit over $794,000 to the victims of his scams.