US authorities extradite British citizen behind 2020 Twitter hack and SIM swap Bitcoin BTC theft

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OConnor used its sophisticated technological capabilities for malicious purposes by carrying out a complex SIM card swapping attack to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency, hacking into Twitter, performing computer intrusions to take over social media accounts and even while cyber-harassing two victims, including an underage victim, the SDNY said in a statement.

In the 2020 Twitter hack, several high-profile Twitter accounts were taken over, including CoinDesks, and used to promote a bitcoin giveaway scam. Although multi-factor authentication is enabled on some of the accounts, the attackers managed to hide the scam warning responses, including from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, and raised around 11.3 BTC ($103,960) through fraudulent activity.

Florida resident Graham Ivan Clark, an OConnors associate who also participated in the attack, was arrested in March 2021 and tried as a young offender, as he was 17 at the time of the hack.

OConnor, 23, was also indicted by SDNY and pleaded guilty to his role in SIM card swapping attacks targeting high-level executives in the cryptocurrency industry, resulting in the theft of 794,000 $ in digital assets.

While the SDNY declined to name the company, stating only that it provides cryptocurrency-related wallet infrastructure and software, there have been numerous instances of crypto companies being targeted using this same technique, including BlockFi.

Telecoms like AT&T as well as T-Mobile have been sued by victims for the lack of internal security measures that allowed these attacks to take place.

OConnor is due back in court on June 23 for sentencing.

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