17 year old allegedly hacked Twitter! A 17 year old allegedly hacked Twitter and is accused of taking over the Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and various other celebrities to scam individuals into sending them Bitcoin.
The teen was arrested and charged, according to the office of Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren. This was announced on Friday.
Warren’s office described the teen as the “mastermind” behind the attack.
“These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they’re not the primary victims here,” Warren said in a statement. “This ‘Bit-Con’ was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country, including here in Florida. This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that.”
30 felony charges have been filed against the Seventeen year old. Some of the charges include organized fraud, communications fraud, fraudulent use of personal information, and access of an electronic device without authority.
2 others were also charged – Mason Sheppard and Nima Fazeli.
The teen’s scam reaped more than $100,000 worth of bitcoin on July 15, according to Warren’s office.
Twitter provided its most recent update into the attack on Thursday evening.
“The social engineering that occurred on July 15, 2020, targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack,” Twitter said in a blog post.
“A successful attack required the attackers to obtain access to both our internal network as well as specific employee credentials that granted them access to our internal support tools. Not all of the employees that were initially targeted had permissions to use account management tools, but the attackers used their credentials to access our internal systems and gain information about our processes.”
Twitter acknowledged the charges and arrest on Friday.
“We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses,” Twitter said in a tweet. “For our part, we are focused on being transparent and providing updates regularly.”
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