A British hacker who hacked into the Twitter handles of Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and numerous other public figures in 2020 as part of a Bitcoin scam has been given a five-year prison term.
In July 2020, the hacker, 24-year-old Joseph O’Connor, acquired control of roughly 130 accounts. Last month, he admitted to hacking these profiles.
The US Attorney’s Office in the southern district of New York has now sentenced him to five years in prison for cybercrimes after he was extradited from Spain on April 26 to face accusations.
According to Tech Crunch, the hacker entered a plea to four counts of computer hacking, wire fraud, and cyberstalking in May.
Additionally, the hacker, also known online as PlugwalkJoe, was mandated to make restitution to his victims in the amount of around $800,000.
Following an investigation, the New York Department of Financial Services discovered that the hackers had called Twitter workers while posing as the IT department.
This access was purportedly utilised by Graham Ivan Clark, also known as Kirk, a different hacker, to take over and reassign Twitter accounts.
Following the incident, Twitter claimed to have strengthened the social media platform’s cybersecurity measures.
Mr. O’Connor was sentenced to a prison term, of three years of supervised release, and was also told to pay a forfeiture of nearly $794,000.