Suspect in scheme to breach major Twitter accounts is now charged with hacking crypto executives
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday unsealed an indictment against a 22-year-old British man accused of stealing $784,000 in cryptocurrency from a Manhattan-based holding company. U.S. attorneys in the Southern District of New York say Joseph James O’Connor and his associates SIM-swapped three executives between March and May in 2019 at a company that maintained cryptocurrency wallet infrastructure for various international exchanges. SIM-swapping occurs when an attacker takes control of a victim’s phone number by linking the number to a device controlled by the attacker. CyberScoop could not immediately locate an attorney for O’Connor. The operation netted the group various amounts of litecoin, ethereum, and bitcoin totaling roughly $784,000. The indictment, originally filed on Aug. 25, charges O’Connor with conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit money laundering. O’Connor — also known as “PlugWalkJoe” — was arrested in Spain in July after […]
The post Suspect in scheme to breach major Twitter accounts is now charged with hacking crypto executives appeared first on CyberScoop.