Teenager masterminded Twitter hack
Print Edition
A 17-YEAR-OLD Florida boy masterminded the hacking of celebrity accounts on Twitter, including those of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, officials said.
A 19-year-old British man and a 22-year-old man in Orlando, Florida were also charged under US federal law with aiding the attack, the Justice Department said.
A Florida prosecutor identified the 17-year-old as Graham Clark of Tampa and charged him as an adult with 30 felony counts of fraud.
Clark netted at least US$100,000 from the scheme by using the celebrity accounts to solicit investments from unsuspecting Twitter users, state officials said.
“He’s a 17-year-old kid who just graduated from high school,” said Florida State Attorney Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, “But make no mistake: This was not an ordinary 17-year-old.”
Warren said the state rather than the federal government was prosecuting Clark because Florida law enabled him to be charged as an adult.
Mason Sheppard, a 19-year-old from Bogner Regis, Britain who used the alias Chaewon, was charged with wire fraud and money laundering while Orlando-based Nima Fazeli, 22, nicknamed Rolex, was accused of aiding and abetting the crimes, according to a Justice Department statement.
Twitter said it appreciated the “swift actions of law enforcement.”
Clark and one of the other participants were in custody, officials said.
In the hack, fraudulent tweets soliciting investments in the digital currency bitcoin were posted in mid-July by 45 verified Twitter accounts.
Twitter said the hackers also likely read some direct messages including to a Dutch elected official.
More than US$100,000 was obtained, bitcoin’s public ledger showed.
Twitter has previously said its employees were duped into sharing account credentials.
Authorities provided new details on Friday in an affidavit alleging Clark “used social engineering to convince a Twitter employee that he was a co-worker in the IT department and had the employee provide credentials to access the customer service portal.”
Sheppard and Fazeli did not return e-mails seeking comment. Phone calls and an e-mail to Clark’s mother were not answered.
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