A teenager has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of orchestrating the hacking of celebrities' Twitter accounts, Reuters reports.
In 2020, Joseph O'Connor, a British hacker, targeted over a hundred politicians and celebrities on Twitter. Earlier this year, he was extradited from Spain to the United States, where he has been in custody ever since.
Prosecutors from the US Department of Justice had sought a minimum of seven years of imprisonment for O'Connor. During the court proceedings, the hacker acknowledged the senselessness of his crimes, apologized to his victims, and appealed to the judge for a more lenient sentence.
The New York court described O'Connor's actions as the use of sophisticated technological skills for malicious purposes. He employed SIM card swapping techniques to carry out a hacking attack, stealing substantial amounts of cryptocurrency. Additionally, O'Connor hacked Twitter accounts and engaged in cyberstalking of two victims, including a minor, according to a court statement.
The government's case against O'Connor revealed that he, under the alias "PlugWalkJoye," hacked dozens of Twitter accounts, including those belonging to Apple, Binance, Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon), Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft), Joe Biden (US President), and Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla).
Out of the 130 compromised accounts, O'Connor exploited 45 of them for fraudulent activities, resulting in a total theft of over $794,000. He and his accomplices will be required to compensate for the financial losses incurred.
It is worth mentioning that O'Connor reached an agreement with the investigation, confessing to all the charges. As part of his sentencing, he is prohibited from using computers without police authorization.
Comments (0)