Security News > 2021 > July > Spanish cops cuff Brit bloke accused of playing role in 2020 celeb Twitter hijacking

The Spanish National Police have, at the request of America, arrested UK citizen Joseph O'Connor in Estepona, Spain, in connection with the July 2020 takeover of more than 130 Twitter accounts.

The US Department of Justice said that, in addition to the alleged Twitter account joyride, O'Connor, 22, has been charged in a federal district court in northern California with computer intrusions tied to the commandeering of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts.

A year ago, the Twitter accounts of various celebrities including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former US president Barack Obama, and others were briefly commandeered to promote a Bitcoin scam.

Tweets sent from the hijacked accounts urged recipients to send $1,000 to a Bitcoin address with the promise that the account holder would send twice as much back.

Twitter shortly after the incident said social engineering of employees allowed hackers access to its internal tools, which provided them with the means to hijack user accounts.

Around the time of the incident, O'Connor, said to use the pseudonym PlugWalkJoe, was linked to the account hijackings by independent security reporter Brian Krebs as an alleged member of a SIM swapping group.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/07/21/twitter_arrest_spain/