One of the most notorious recent social media hacks has left one cybercriminal with a court-ordered bill worth over $5.4 million, as he hijacked the X accounts of names like Elon Musk and Barack Obama in 2020.
While they might look a bit strange when they happen and for most people be easy to spot, social media hacks can be incredibly dangerous for the average user, and inversely incredibly profitable for the cybercriminal.
Some hacks are merely used to create chaos or push rhetoric, whereas others use the accounts as a digital hostage, demanding a hefty ransom for the original user to recover them.
The rise in popularity of cryptocurrency – particularly Bitcoin – has seen that become a major target for social media hackers though, as big accounts are sometimes taken over to push predatory crypto schemes, making millions of dollars in the process.
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Arguably the most notable instance of this occurred in July 2020, where one hacker managed to hijack the accounts of huge names like Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama, and even then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
These accounts were then used to solicit digital currency in the form of Bitcoin, and even threaten celebrities with further action, prompting the team behind X (then known as Twitter) to temporarily restrict verified accounts.
As reported by Reuters, the man behind this attack has now been ordered to hand over £4.1 million ($5.4 million) by courts, as 26-year-old British-born Joseph James O'Connor was originally convicted in 2023, pleading guilty to charges of computer intrusion, wire fraud, and extortion.
This originally left him with a five-year prison sentence after being extradited from Spain – where he was originally arrested – to the United States after the former's High Court deemed America to be the best place to prosecute due to the close proximity of evidence and victims.
However, things have got worse for O'Connor now as Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has obtained a civil recovery order, seizing 42 Bitcoin and a number of other cryptocurrency-related assets in order to pay back the millions that he stole.
O'Connor's assets were frozen as a consequence of a property freezing order obtained during his extradition process, and will now be liquidated by a court-appointed trustee following the recovery order.
"We were able to use the full force of the powers available to us to ensure that even when someone is not convicted in the UK, we are still able to ensure they do not benefit from their criminality," asserted Adrian Foster, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division, in a new statement regarding the matter.