Twitter hack: Joseph O'Connor jailed for celebrity cyber attack

A British man who hacked high profile Twitter accounts as part of a Bitcoin scam has been jailed in the US. Joseph O'Connor, from Liverpool, hijacked more than 130 accounts in July 2020, including those of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk. As a result of the fraud, an estimated 350 million Twitter users viewed suspicious tweets from official accounts of some of the platform's biggest users, including Apple, Uber, Kanye West and Bill Gates. The hackers telephoned a small number of Twitter employees with a believable tale to convince them to hand over their internal login details - which eventually granted them access to Twitter's administrative tools. The US justice department also said O'Connor admitted other hacking crimes including gaining access to a high-profile TikTok account and stalking a minor. Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.

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