A British hacker has been sentenced to a five-year prison term by the court in San Francisco. The 23-year-old cybercriminal received the sentence, among other things, for the digital breach at Twitter in 2020, during which he took over the accounts of, among others, politician Geert Wilders.
Joseph James O’Connor, who used the online alias PlugwalkJoe, was arrested in Estepona, Spain, in 2021. In late April, Spain extradited him to the United States. In this case, a 22-year-old man was also arrested in November.
In 2020, O’Connor, along with his accomplices, managed to gain access to programs used by Twitter to manage the platform. This allowed them to take control of accounts and grant others access to those profiles.
The British hacker and his accomplices also engaged in fraudulent activities, such as posting calls on the profiles of companies like Apple and Uber, as well as prominent individuals like Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, rapper Ye, and billionaire Elon Musk, urging people to send bitcoins.
With this so-called bitcoin spam, the hackers made a significant amount of money. Earlier this year, O’Connor reached a settlement and agreed to forfeit approximately 734,000 euros in proceeds.
However, the Twitter hack is not the only offence committed by the hacker. In 2019, he gained access to actress Bella Thorne’s Snapchat account and threatened to publish nude photos of her. As a result, the actress decided to release the photos herself.
The hacker is also being punished for repeatedly making false reports to the police, directing them to the home of a minor. During these calls to the police, he impersonated the child.
