O’Connor, if convicted, would be sentenced in a federal district court. And the judge would be considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
O’Connor was implicated in the Twitter hack
Krebs on Security reports that O’Connor is a well-known sim-swapper. He is alleged to have hijacked valuable social media accounts by manipulating cellular network employees to duplicate phone numbers. And this allows hackers to intercept two-factor authorization requests.
Last year, a New York Times story featured interviews with several people involved in the attack. The young men told The Times they had only brokered the purchase of accounts from the Twitter hacker who they knew as “Kirk” aka PlugWalkJoe.
One of those interviewed used the alias “Ever So Anxious,” a 19-year from the U.K. who was later identified as Mason (Chaewon) Sheppard.
Chaewon tied the Twitter compromise back to a 21-year-old from the U.K. known as Kirk. And has also been using the nickname PlugWalkJoe.
In a 2020 interview with The New York Times about the Twitter breach, O’Connor identified himself as “PlugWalkJoe.” And he confirmed that the hackers obtained Twitter credentials from an internal company Slack channel to take over the accounts.
