A teenager in Florida who last Twitter mastered the Twitter hack of prominent accounts such as Bill Gates and Barack Obama was sentenced this week to three years in prison and a three-year probation.
Graham Ivan Clark, who was 17 at the time of the hijacking but is now 18, pleaded guilty to 30 charges of offenses as part of a plea deal, authorities announced.
Prosecutors say Clark and his co-conspirators hacked into numerous Twitter accounts, including politicians like Barack Obama and Mike Bloomberg; business leaders like Elon Musk and Bill Gates; and celebrities like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
Twitter explains that the hackers’ targeted a small number of employees through a telephone call phishing attack ‘, which enabled them to’ gain access to both our internal network as well as specific persons gaining access to our internal support tools grant ‘.
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Clark then sends fake tweets from the hacked accounts and tells followers that they will send $ 2,000 in Bitcoin for every $ 1,000 sent to an anonymous address.
The scam gave Clark 12.86 Bitcoin on July 15 last year, which was worth about $ 117,440 at the time.
“He took over the accounts of celebrities, but the money he stole comes from ordinary, hard-working people. Graham Clark must be held accountable for the crime, and other potential scammers out there must see the consequences,” Hillsborough State said. . Attorney Andrew Warren said Tuesday.
“In this case, we were able to deliver the consequences while realizing that our goal with any child is to make it possible to learn without destroying their future.”
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Clark and two other people allegedly involved in the robbery – Mason Sheppard, 19, of the United Kingdom and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando – were identified and charged just two weeks after the crime when federal agents tracked them down. bitcoin transactions and online chats.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.