Three People Arrested for Twitter Hack Including Troubled Florida Teen

Twitter Hack

Three people have been arrested for the Twitter hack on July 15, 2020. The hackers took over various verified accounts. The accounts of former US President Barack Obama, Tesla owner Elon Musk, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and companies such as Apple and Coinbase were seen promoting a Bitcoin scam.
17-year-old Graham Clark from Tampa, Florida was arrested on July 31. Shortly after, 22-year-old Nima Fazeli from Orlando and 19-year-old Mason Sheppard from the UK were also taken into custody.
Largest Twitter Security Breach
The hackers’ actions were the largest security and privacy breach in Twitter so far. While three people have been arrested, authorities believe that Clark was the one who carried out the scam.
Clark used social engineering to pretend to work in the company’s IT department. He managed to trick a Twitter employee into giving him credentials to access Twitter’s Customer Service Portal.
After that, Clark accessed the Twitter accounts of public figures and used them to post the scam. The tweet instructed victims to send Bitcoins to an account so that they would receive double the amount.
For his scam, Clark received $117,000. Other than Bitcoin defraud, the attackers also accessed the private direct messages (DMs) of 36 Twitter users.
It is unclear how Clark managed to access Twitter’s systems. The company only said that it was a “phone spear phishing attack”.
Federal agents said that Sheppard was caught because he used his personal driver’s license to verify for Binance and Coinbase cryptocurrency exchanges. His accounts were also found to have sent and received some of the stolen bitcoins.
Fazeli also used a driver’s license for verification with Coinbase. He was arrested for aiding the fraud after the Coinbase accounts under his alias “Rolex” received payments for stolen Twitter usernames.
Troubled Teenager
The fraud is not the first online misbehavior of Clark, who is the main perpetrator. The 17-year-old seems to have stolen $856,000 worth of Bitcoins, even though he never faced charges for it. He has previously scammed people on Minecraft as well.
Currently in jail, Clark is facing more than 30 felony counts including hacking, identity theft, and organized fraud. On the other hand, Fazeli is facing a five-year sentence and a $250,000 fine for computer intrusion. Sheppard is charged with computer intrusion, wire fraud, and money laundering, for which he is facing 20 years of prison and a $250,000 fine.

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