Joseph James “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, a 24-year-old from the UK who earned his quarter-hour of fame by taking part within the July 2020 hack of Twitter, has been sentenced to 5 years in a U.S. jail. Which will appear to be harsh punishment for a short and really public cyber pleasure trip. However O’Connor additionally pleaded responsible in a separate investigation involving a years-long spree of cyberstalking and cryptocurrency theft enabled by “SIM swapping,” a criminal offense whereby fraudsters trick a cellular supplier into diverting a buyer’s cellphone calls and textual content messages to a tool they management.
Joseph “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, in a photograph from a Globe Newswire press launch Sept. 02, 2020, pitching O’Connor as a cryptocurrency professional and advisor.
On July 16, 2020 — the day after a few of Twitter’s most recognizable and common customers had their accounts hacked and used to tweet out a bitcoin rip-off — KrebsOnSecurity observed that a number of social media accounts tied to O’Connor appeared to have inside information of the intrusion. That story additionally famous that because of COVID-19 lockdowns on the time, O’Connor was caught on an indefinite trip at a well-liked resort in Spain.
Not lengthy after the Twitter hack, O’Connor was quoted in The New York Instances denying any involvement. “I don’t care,” O’Connor advised The Instances. “They will come arrest me. I might snort at them. I haven’t achieved something.”
Talking with KrebsOnSecurity by way of Instagram instantaneous message simply days after the Twitter hack, PlugwalkJoe demanded that his actual title be stored out of future weblog posts right here. After he was advised that couldn’t be promised, he remarked that some folks in his circle of pals had been identified to rent others to ship bodily beatings on folks they didn’t like.
O’Connor was nonetheless in Spain a 12 months later when prosecutors within the Northern District of California charged him with conspiring to hack Twitter. On the similar time, prosecutors within the Southern District of New York charged O’Connor with a powerful array of cyber offenses involving the exploitation of social media accounts, on-line extortion, and cyberstalking, and the theft of cryptocurrency then valued at practically USD $800,000.
In late April 2023, O’Connor was extradited from Spain to face expenses in the USA. Two weeks later, he entered responsible pleas in each California and New York, admitting to all ten felony expenses levied in opposition to him. On June 23, O’Connor was sentenced to five years in prison.
PlugwalkJoe was a part of a neighborhood that specialised in SIM-swapping victims to take over their on-line identities. Unauthorized SIM swapping is a scheme wherein fraudsters trick or bribe staff at wi-fi cellphone firms into redirecting the goal’s textual content messages and cellphone calls to a tool they management.
From there, the attackers can reset the password for any of the sufferer’s on-line accounts that enable password resets by way of SMS. SIM swapping additionally lets attackers intercept one-time passwords wanted for SMS-based multi-factor authentication (MFA).
O’Connor admitted to conducting SIM swapping assaults to take management over monetary accounts tied to a number of cryptocurrency executives in Might 2019, and to stealing digital forex at present valued at greater than $1.6 million.
PlugwalkJoe additionally copped to SIM-swapping his approach into the Snapchat accounts of a number of feminine celebrities and threatening to launch nude pictures discovered on their telephones.
Victims who refused to surrender social media accounts or undergo extortion calls for have been typically visited with “swatting assaults,” whereby O’Connor and others would falsely report a capturing or hostage state of affairs within the hopes of tricking police into visiting doubtlessly deadly drive on a goal’s deal with.
Prosecutors mentioned O’Connor even swatted and cyberstalked a 16-year-old lady, sending her nude pictures and threatening to rape and/or homicide her and her household.
Within the case of the Twitter hack, O’Connor pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit pc intrusions, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit cash laundering.
The account “@shinji,” a.okay.a. “PlugWalkJoe,” tweeting a screenshot of Twitter’s inner instruments interface, on July 15, 2020.
To resolve the case in opposition to him in New York, O’Connor pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit pc intrusion, two counts of committing pc intrusions, making extortive communications, two counts of stalking, and making threatening communications.
Along with the jail time period, O’Connor was sentenced to 3 years of supervised launch, and ordered to pay $794,012.64 in forfeiture.
To be clear, the Twitter hack of July 2020 didn’t contain SIM-swapping. Somewhat, Twitter mentioned the intruders tricked a Twitter worker over the cellphone into offering entry to inner instruments.
Three others were charged together with O’Connor within the Twitter compromise. The alleged mastermind of the hack, then 17-year-old Graham Ivan Clarke from Tampa, Fla., pleaded guilty in 2021 and agreed to serve three years in jail, adopted by three years probation.
This story is nice reminder about the necessity to minimize your reliance on the mobile phone companies for securing your on-line identification. This implies lowering the variety of methods your life may very well be turned the other way up if somebody have been to hijack your mobile phone number.
Most on-line companies require customers to validate a cell phone quantity as a part of organising an account, however some companies will allow you to take away your cellphone quantity after the very fact. These companies that do you allow you to take away your cellphone quantity or disable SMS/cellphone requires account restoration most likely additionally provide safer multi-factor authentication choices, reminiscent of app-based one-time passwords and security keys. Take a look at 2fa.directory for an inventory of multi-factor choices accessible throughout lots of of common websites and companies.
