Briton pleads guilty in US to 2020 Twitter hack

A British nationalist extradited to the US past period has pleaded blameworthy successful New York to a relation successful 1 of the biggest hacks successful societal media history.

The July 2020 Twitter hack affected implicit 130 accounts including those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Joseph James O'Connor, 23, known arsenic PlugwalkJoe, pleaded blameworthy to hacking charges carrying a full maximum condemnation of implicit 70 years successful prison.

The US justness section said helium had besides utilized exertion to stalk a minor.

US Assistant Attorney-General Kenneth Polite Jr described successful a statement O'Connor's actions arsenic "flagrant and malicious". saying helium had "harassed, threatened, and extorted his victims, causing important affectional harm".

"Like galore transgression actors, O'Connor tried to enactment anonymous by utilizing a machine to fell down stealth accounts and aliases from extracurricular the United States. But this plea shows that our investigators and prosecutors volition identify, locate, and bring to justness specified criminals to guarantee they look the consequences for their crimes."

In 2020, an estimated 350 cardinal Twitter users saw suspicious tweets from authoritative accounts of the platform's biggest users. Thousands fell for a scam, trusting that a crypto giveaway was real.

Cyber experts agreed that the consequences of the Twitter hack could person been acold worse if O'Connor and different hackers had had plans much blase than a get-rich-quick scheme.

Disinformation could person been dispersed to impact governmental sermon and markets could person been moved by well-worded fake concern announcements for example.

The hack showed however fragile Twitter's information was astatine the clip arsenic the hackers managed to usage societal engineering tricks much akin to those of conmen than of high-level cyber criminals to get entree to the almighty interior power sheet astatine the site.

It was, and inactive is, a hugely embarrassing infinitesimal successful Twitter's troubled history.

O'Connor's admittance has not travel arsenic a daze though arsenic determination was a wealthiness of grounds successful the nationalist domain acknowledgment to the hackers making immoderate atrocious mistakes oregon being excessively large successful their celebrations successful the aftermath of the hack.