Man Arrested with Alleged Role in Twitter Hack

Remember, the Twitter hack which took place last year where over 130 Twitter accounts were compromised, including those belonging to politicians, celebrities and companies a bunch of accounts for some of the world’s most recognizable public figures, executives and celebrities, starting tweeting out links to bitcoin scams. This was happened due to the coordinated social engineering attack on the Twitter employee that leads to access to internal Twitter administrative tools. 

For this hack attempts, today Spanish National Police pursuant to a U.S. request has arrested a  citizen of the United Kingdom on multiple charges in connection with the July 2020 hack of Twitter.

A 22-year-old, Joseph O’Connor is charged with a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. According to court documents, in addition to the July 15, 2020, hack of Twitter, O’Connor is charged with computer intrusions related to takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts. O’Connor is also charged with cyberstalking a juvenile victim.

O’Connor is charged with three counts of conspiracy to intentionally access a computer without authorization and obtaining information from a protected computer; two counts of intentionally accessing a computer without authorization and obtaining information from a protected computer; one count of conspiracy to intentionally access a computer without authorization and, with the intent to extort from a person a thing of value, transmitting a communication containing a threat; one count of making extortive communications; one count of making threatening communications; and two counts of cyberstalking.

The Twitter hack was investigated by the FBI San Francisco Division is investigating the case, with assistance from the IRS-Criminal Investigation Cyber Unit; the U.S. Secret Service, San Francisco and Headquarters; and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office and its REACT task force.

In July 2020 Twitter hack, some well-known politicians and celebrities account named democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, President Barack Obama, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and investment mogul Warren Buffett was among the victim.