After 1 year of the incident, the Twitter hacker who took over the accounts of several famous people has been arrested. Joseph O’Connor, a 22-year old UK citizen was arrested by the Spanish National Police in Estepona, Spain.
The U.S. Department of Justice says that the Twitter hacker was also involved in hacking several TikTok and Snapchat accounts. He’s also being charged with cyberstalking a juvenile.
The July 2020 Twitter Hack
Last year, on July 15, a Twitter hacker took over the accounts of former U.S. President Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, and others. A synchronized tweet was sent from all the hacked accounts. The hacker tweeted for people to add money to a Bitcoin address, claiming the celebrity will double the amount and send it back.
It is called one of the biggest coordinated attacks of all time. The Bitcoin wallets that the Twitter hacker posted ended up collecting more than $1,20,000. Investigations pointed out that Twitter employees were targeted in the attack, and that the company’s internal tools were used to gain access to multiple verified accounts.
Other than O’Connor, a juvenile was also arrested in connection with the hack last year in the U.S. After the attack, Twitter had to disable multiple verified accounts for several hours, till access was restored to the original owners.
The alleged Twitter hacker, Joseph O’Connor is facing multiple charges of unauthorized access, intent to extortion, transmitting threatening communication, and cyberstalking.
