British Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for $794,000 Crypto Theft in SIM Swap Attack

British hacker Joseph O’Connor, known as “PlugwalkJoe,” has been sentenced to five years in prison in the United States for his role in a high-profile SIM swap attack.

The attack targeted a crypto exchange executive in 2019, resulting in the theft of approximately $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency. O’Connor’s case gained international attention, highlighting the growing threat of cybercrime in the crypto space.

A SIM swap attack is a type of social engineering attack where the attacker tricks a mobile carrier into transferring a victim’s phone number to a new SIM card that they control.

This gives the attacker access to the victim’s phone number and all of the accounts that are associated with it, including email, social media, and cryptocurrency wallets.

In O’Connor’s case, he and his co-conspirators executed a SIM swap attack on a crypto exchange executive, gaining unauthorized access to the victim’s accounts and computer systems.

Between March and May 2019, they successfully stole and diverted cryptocurrency valued at approximately $794,000 at the time, now worth over $1.6 million.

The stolen funds were laundered through various transfers, transactions, and exchanges, with O’Connor controlling a crypto exchange account where a portion of the stolen cryptocurrency was deposited.

On June 23, 2023, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced O’Connor’s five-year prison sentence and three years of supervised release.

He has also been ordered to pay $794,012.64 in forfeiture. In addition to the SIM swap attack, O’Connor pleaded guilty to multiple other crimes, including his involvement in the major Twitter hack of July 2020.

The Twitter hack targeted prominent accounts and involved social engineering techniques and SIM-swapping attacks. O’Connor and his crew defrauded users and sold access to compromised accounts.