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

admin by admin
June 25, 2023
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$794K SIM swap hacker Plugwalkjoe sentenced to five years in prison
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British Hacker Joseph O’Connor, also known online as PlugWalkJoe, has been sentenced to five years in US prison for his role in stealing $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency via a SIM swap attack on a crypto exchange executive in April 2019. has been heard.

O’Connor was initially arrested in Spain in July 2021 and extradited to the US on April 26, 2023. In May, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and multiple charges related to the conspiracy. If you name some, do money laundering.

jailed Thrown light on In a June 23 statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

In addition to the prison term, O’Connor was sentenced to three years of supervised release. O’Connor was ordered to pay $794,012.64 in forfeiture,” the statement said.

The hacked crypto executive has not been named, however following the SIM swapping, O’Connor gained unauthorized access to accounts and computing systems belonging to the exchange the executive worked on.

“After stealing and fraudulently diverting the stolen cryptocurrency, O’Connor and his co-conspirators laundered it through dozens of transfers and transactions and exchanged some of it for bitcoin using cryptocurrency exchange services.” Did.”

“Ultimately, a portion of the stolen cryptocurrency was deposited into a cryptocurrency exchange account controlled by O’Connor,” the statement said.

O’Connor’s sentence also includes offenses related to the major Twitter hack of July 2020, which ultimately led to him and his crew receiving approximately $120,000 in ill-gotten crypto profits.

The hackers deployed a series of “social engineering techniques” and SIM-swapping attacks to hijack nearly 130 major Twitter accounts, along with two big accounts on TikTok and Snapchat.

“In some cases, the co-conspirators took control themselves and used that control to initiate a scheme to defraud other Twitter users. In other cases, co-conspirators sold access to Twitter accounts to others,” the statement said.

As part of this scheme, O’Connor attempted to blackmail the Snapchat victim by threatening to publicly release private messages if she did not make posts that promoted O’Connor’s online persona.

Additionally, O’Connor “followed and threatened” a victim, and “perpetrated a series of assaults” on them by falsely reporting an emergency to authorities.

SIM swap is still a big issue

In a SIM swap attack, a bad actor takes control of a victim’s phone number by linking it to another SIM card they control.

As a result, bad actors can re-route the victim’s calls and messages to a device they control, and gain access to any account the victim uses SMS-based two-factor authentication.

This scheme is typically used to trick followers of prominent accounts into clicking on phishing links that ultimately lead to their crypto assets being swiped away.

Connected: Darknet hackers are selling crypto accounts for at least $30 a pop

Despite O’Connor’s actions nearly three years ago, SIM swapping attacks remain a significant issue in the crypto sphere.

Earlier this month blockchain sleuth ZachXBT identified a group of scammers who SIM-swapped at least eight accounts belonging to well-known figures in crypto, including Puddy Penguins founder Cole Willeman, DJ and NFT collector Steve Aoki and Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo.

According to ZachXBT, the group stole around $1 million by promoting phishing links from the hacked accounts.

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