A Briton who participated in one of the biggest hacks in Twitter history pleaded guilty in New York this week after being extradited to the U.S.
Joseph James O’Connor, 23, is facing upwards of 70 years in prison for his role in a hack that saw hundreds of high-profile and celebrity accounts sabotaged for a cryptocurrency scam.
Sentencing was set for June 23 and O’Connor was ordered jailed in the meantime.
In July 2020, O’Connor seized several popular accounts to send out tweets asking for followers to send bitcoin to different accounts with promises of doubling their money. Most of the tweets sent out were copied and pasted, thousands reportedly fell for the scam anyway.
“I am giving back to my community due to Covid-19! All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled. If you send $1,000 I will send back $2,000!” read one scam tweet sent by the hackers.
Some of the celebrities who had their accounts compromised include Kanye West, Michael R. Bloomberg, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
The hack was not achieved in a complex fashion. The hackers simply telephoned Twitter employees and persuaded them to give their internal login information, which gave the criminals access to the needed administrative tools.
The hack was incredibly embarrassing for Twitter at the time and could have had other bad consequences if the bad actors were after anything other than money. Access to Twitter’s administrative tools would have, theoretically, made it easy for them to spread disinformation for political purposes.
O’Connor was not alone in the crime. Graham Ivan Clark and Nima Fazeli have been convicted in separate trials and each sentenced to three years imprisonment.
Charges are still pending against Mason Sheppard.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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