Allleged TikTok, Twitter Hacker Joseph O'Connor Arrested In Spain
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Spanish police arrested a suspect Wednesday in connection with the July 2020 Twitter hack that compromised over 130 accounts including those belonging to politicians, celebrities, and companies.
Joseph O'Connor, a citizen of the United Kingdom, has been the focus of international manhunt. He was arrested Wednesday in Estepona, Spain by Spanish national police.
The 22-year-old is charged in criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.
According to court documents, in addition to the July 15, 2020, hack of Twitter, O'Connor is charged with computer intrusions related to takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts. O'Connor was also charged with cyberstalking a juvenile victim.
As part of the high-profile security breach, bogus tweets were sent out in July from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked.
Three others have already been charged in the case -- Florida teen Graham Ivan Clark, Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, U.K., and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando,
O'Connor is charged with three counts of conspiracy to intentionally access a computer without authorization and obtaining information from a protected computer; two counts of intentionally accessing a computer without authorization and obtaining information from a protected computer; one count of conspiracy to intentionally access a computer without authorization among other federal counts.
