He pleaded guilty. A British hacker admitted on Tuesday before the US justice his responsibility in a series of cyberattacks, the most spectacular of which had targeted, in 2020, the Twitter accounts of personalities such as Joe Biden, Bill Gates or Elon Musk. Joseph O'Connor, 23, was arrested in Spain in July 2021 at the request of the United States and was extradited on April 26, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

Cryptocurrency scam

In addition to the attack on Twitter, he was prosecuted for taking control of TikTok and Snapchat accounts, as well as online harassment or extortion. "O'Connor used his technological skills for malicious purposes ... to steal cryptocurrencies, hack Twitter, take control of social media accounts and harass two victims, including a minor," said prosecutor Damian Williams, who is in charge of the case.

On July 15, 2020, Twitter was the subject of a particularly embarrassing attack, given the visibility of the 130 hacked accounts. A tantalizing message appeared on 45 of them: "I decided to help my community. All bitcoins sent to my address, below, will be doubled, "could be read under the profile of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. These messages were quickly deleted, but according to the investigation, the scam would have allowed hackers to pocket more than $ 100,000 in cryptocurrency, via 400 transfers of gullible Internet users.

The barrier of two-factor authentication circumvented

The attack had revived the debate on the security of social networks a few months before the presidential election and seriously damaged the credibility of the network to the bird. Twitter had explained that the hackers had targeted a handful of employees via a phishing operation by phone. They had thus managed to pass the barrier of double authentication, which normally makes it possible to secure an account beyond the simple password. Justice had traced the path of bitcoins and had quickly traced back to three young hackers: Graham Clark, an American then only 17 years old, Mason Sheppard, a 19-year-old Briton, and Nima Fazeli, a 22-year-old American. After pleading guilty, the first, considered the mastermind of the attack, was sentenced in 2021 to three years in prison.



The name of the British Joseph O'Connor, better known as PlugWalkJoe, was immediately mentioned by cybersecurity experts. After his arrest, American actress Bella Thorne revealed that he had threatened to make public nude photos of her, stolen in 2019 from her Snapchat account. She had put them online herself to regain control.

  • World
  • Hacker
  • Cyberattack
  • Twitter
  • USA
  • Great Britain