Teen Twitter hacker Graham Ivan Clark pleaded guilty to last summer’s unprecedented bitcoin fraud attack involving the takeover of dozens of high-profile accounts on the social network, according to the paperwork filed in Florida court on Tuesday. Clark, who was 17 when he was accused of leading the scam, will serve three years in prison as part of his plea deal. The Tampa Bay Times reported the news earlier today.
Clark has already served 229 days since his arrest last summer. As part of the deal, Clark is also sentenced as a ‘juvenile offender’, which has reduced his jail time and also opens up the possibility that he could serve part of his sentence in a boat camp, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Clark will also be banned from using computers without permission and without the supervision of law enforcement.
The hack took place on July 15, 2020 and it quickly became one of the most advanced cyber-security incidents in the history of Twitter, as accounts of high-profile users such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were quickly compromised. conspiracy to promote a bitcoin scam, Clark has accepted more than $ 100,000 in the cryptocurrency.
How Clark took out the hack, which he did with two other contributors he allegedly met on an online username sales forum called OGusers, is the subject of numerous reports outlining the group’s use of internal Twitter tools. These tools, which can be used to reset email addresses of your account, have enabled Clark and his associates to take control of the accounts and send out tweets that the public has asked for bitcoin.
Shortly after the robbery, Clark was arrested at his home in Hillsborough, Florida. Clark’s partners, Nima Fazeli of Orlando and Mason Sheppard of the United Kingdom, are also charged with federal crimes.