A 17-year-old in Florida has been arrested on charges of being the “mastermind behind the biggest security and privacy breach in Twitter’s history”, in the latest development in the massive Twitter account hacking.
Graham Clark, 17, is accused of hacking into the accounts of former US President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and others and running a Bitcoin scam on July 15.
Tricking employees inside Twitter into obtaining certificates
After Graham Clark’s arrest, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two other people, Nima Fazeli, 22, and Mason Sheppard, 19.
According to the DoJ investigation, Graham Clark, a former employee in Twitter’s IT department, persuaded a colleague to provide a certificate to access customer service accounts.
Graham Clark then accessed the accounts of the above celebrities and businesses and posted scams about Bitcoin.
Graham Clark and his accomplices made about $117,000 from the scheme.
The suspect was arrested using his own credentials
According to federal agents, 19-year-old Mason Sheppard was found in part because he had used his personal driver’s license to authenticate with the Binance and Coinbase cryptocurrency exchanges, and it was found that his account had sent and received some fraudulent bitcoin. Nima Fazeli also used her driver’s license to verify with Coinbase.
In any case, Graham Clark is behind bars and charged with 30 felony counts, including organized fraud, wire fraud, identity theft and hacking, U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Warren said at a news conference.
Nima Fazeli was sentenced to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for computer hacking. Mason Sheppard was charged with computer intrusion, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
It is understood that the hacker with the tag “Kirk # 5270” was the one who had access to Twitter’s internal systems and it is not clear whether Graham Clarke was the same person. The FBI says its investigation is ongoing and it is still looking for more suspects.
