Security News > 2023 > May > Hacker ‘PlugwalkJoe’ pleads guilty to 2020 Twitter breach
Joseph James O'Connor, aka 'PlugwalkJoke,' has pleaded guilty to multiple cybercrime offenses, including SIM swapping attacks, cyberstalking, computer hacking, and hijacking high-profile accounts on Twitter and TikTok.
O'Connor admitted his role in the hack that impacted Twitter in June 2020, where he and his three co-conspirators gained access to the accounts of high-profile individuals such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Binance, Apple, Uber, and Bitcoin.
The hackers used social engineering to obtain access to internal administrative tools used by Twitter employees and then transferred control of the target accounts to unauthorized users.
In August 2020, the hacker employed SIM swapping to hijack a TikTok account belonging to a public figure with millions of followers and abused it for self-promotion.
The hacker further threatened the victimized account owner that he would release sensitive personal data on a Discord server.
The U.S. Department of Justice announcement mentions that the defendant started his social media hacking spree in June 2019 by obtaining unauthorized access to a Snapchat account, stealing sensitive data, and then blackmailing the account owner.
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