A Twitter hacker who breached the accounts of celebrities including Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos has been forced to hand over £4million. Joseph James O’Connor, 26, was jailed in the US for the hacks which involved scamming people out of Bitcoin and threatening celebrities with the release of personal images and messages.
Now the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division has obtained a Civil Recovery Order to recover 42 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, that O’Connor made from the scheme, which holds the value of around £4.1m.
Read more…
Source: The Crown Prosecution Service
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Mobile-First Phishing Kit Targets Verizon Customers
April 2, 2019
As people increasingly go mobile-first in their work and personal lives, cybercrime is keeping up: The latest is a phishing kit that specifically targets Verizon Wireless customers in the U.S. According to Jeremy Richards, a researcher at Lookout Security, the kit pushes phishing links to users via email, masquerading as messages from Verizon Customer Support. These ...
- Google Warns of Growing Android Attack Vector: Backdoored SDKs and Pre-Installed Apps
April 1, 2019
Google is reporting an uptick in efforts by bad actors to plant potentially harmful applications (PHAs) on Android devices via pre-installed apps and by bundling them with system updates delivered over the air. The technique is especially troubling, Google said, because PHAs are often malicious and users have no control over what comes pre-installed on their ...
- Ransomware Behind Norsk Hydro Attack Takes On Wiper-Like Capabilities
March 27, 2019
Researchers are still looking for answers when it comes to LockerGoga’s initial infection method – and what the attackers behind the ransomware really want. LockerGoga, the malware that took down Norsk Hydro last week, has taken the industrial world by storm, as researchers race to uncover more about the mysterious ransomware that crippled several of the ...
- The latest dark web cyber-criminal trend: Selling children’s personal data
March 27, 2019
Imagine you’re a teenager, applying for credit to buy your first car or maybe a loan to go to university. You don’t remember taking out a credit card when you were six years old, but the bank is adamant, and now you have a poor credit rating and in their eyes, you’re persona non grata. ...
- UK: Police Federation Confirms Ransomware Breach
March 22, 2019
The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has confirmed that it has suffered a ransomware attack, but has said that it was not specifically targetted and was likely to have been impacted as part of a wider campaign. The ransomware attack has apparently only impacted computers at its headquarters in Surrey, and the PFEW said ...
- Global threat group Fin7 returns with new SQLRat malware
March 20, 2019
The notoriously well-known threat group Fin7, also known as Carbanak, is back with a new set of administrator tools and never-before-seen forms of malware. Fin7 has been active since at least 2015 and since the group’s inception has been connected to attacks against hundreds of companies worldwide. Over 100 companies have been impacted in the United States ...

