$794K SIM swap hacker PlugwalkJoe sentenced to five years in prison

2 years ago

British Hacker Joseph O’Connor, besides known online arsenic PlugwalkJoe, has been sentenced to 5 years successful U.S. situation for his relation successful stealing $794,000 worthy of cryptocurrency via a SIM swap onslaught connected a crypto speech executive backmost successful April 2019.

O’Connor was initially arrested successful Spain successful July 2021 and was extradited to the U.S. connected April 26, 2023. In May helium pled blameworthy to a slew of charges relating to conspiracy to perpetrate machine intrusions, conspiracy to perpetrate ligament fraud, and conspiracy to perpetrate wealth laundering, to sanction a few.

plugwalkjoe is getting his condemnation successful 5 days, truthful it’s clip to bring this gem backmost pic.twitter.com/OOBqD2FaFA

— rip @ironic (@ripironic) June 18, 2023

The situation condemnation was confirmed successful a June 23 connection from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York.

“In summation to the situation term, O’Connor was sentenced to 3 years of supervised release. O’Connor was further ordered to wage $794,012.64 successful forfeiture,” the connection reads.

The hacked crypto exec has not been named, nevertheless aft SIM swapping them, O’Connor gained unauthorized entree to accounts and computing systems belonging to the speech that the exec worked at.

“After stealing and fraudulently diverting the stolen cryptocurrency, O’Connor and his co-conspirators laundered it done dozens of transfers and transactions and exchanged immoderate of it for Bitcoin utilizing cryptocurrency speech services.”

“Ultimately, a information of the stolen cryptocurrency was deposited into a cryptocurrency speech relationship controlled by O’Connor,” the connection adds.

O’Connor’s condemnation besides covers offenses relating to the large Twitter hack of July 2020, which yet fetched him and his unit astir $120,000 worthy of ill-gotten crypto gains.

1/ Time for a communicative that combines the craziness of crypto, the perils of hacking, and the consequences of shady actions. Buckle up arsenic we research the lawsuit of Joseph James O'Connor, aka PlugwalkJoe, the mastermind down the infamous Twitter hack of July 2020!#Crypto

— Crypto Camel (@CamelChronicles) June 24, 2023

The hackers deployed a bid of “social engineering techniques” and SIM-swapping attacks to hijack astir 130 salient Twitter accounts, on with 2 ample accounts connected TikTok and Snapchat.

“In immoderate instances, the co-conspirators took power themselves and utilized that power to motorboat a strategy to defraud different Twitter users. In different instances, the co-conspirators sold entree to Twitter accounts to others,” the connection reads.

As portion of this scheme, O’Connor attempted to blackmail the Snapchat unfortunate by threatening to publically merchandise backstage messages if they didn’t marque posts promoting O’Connor’s online persona.

Additionally, O’Connor besides “stalked and threatened” a victim, and “orchestrated a bid of swatting attacks” connected them by falsely reporting emergencies to authorities.

SIM swaps are inactive a large contented

A SIM swap onslaught involves a atrocious histrion taking power of a victim’s telephone fig by linking it to different sim paper controlled by them.

As a result, the atrocious actors tin past re-route the victim’s calls and messages to a instrumentality controlled by them, and summation entree to immoderate accounts the unfortunate uses SMS-based two-factor authentication on.

The strategy is mostly utilized to dupe followers of salient accounts into clicking phishing links that yet extremity up swiping their crypto assets.

Related: Darknet hackers are selling crypto accounts for arsenic debased arsenic $30 a pop

Despite O’Connor’s antics occurring astir 3 years ago, SIM swapping attacks proceed to beryllium a important contented successful the crypto sector.

Earlier this period blockchain sleuth ZachXBT identified a radical of scammers that SIM-swapped astatine slightest 8 accounts belonging to well-known figures successful crypto, including Pudgy Penguins laminitis Cole Villemain, DJ and NFT collector Steve Aoki and Bitcoin Magazine exertion Pete Rizzo.

According to ZachXBT, the radical stole astir $1 cardinal by promoting phishing links from the hacked accounts.

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