Florida Teen Accused of Massive Twitter Hack Targeting Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Others
Court hearings in the case of the mass hacking of Twitter accounts against Graham Ivan Clark, a 17-year-old guy from Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida, began on August 5.
On July 15, a Florida teen hacker gained access to high-profile Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, as well as Apple, Uber, and other companies.
A fraudulent scheme involving stealing prominent people's identity and posting messages on their behalf asking to transfer bitcoins allowed a Tampa teenager to earn more than $100,000 in just one day.
We’re sharing an update based on what we know today. We’ll provide a more detailed report on what occurred at a later date given the ongoing law enforcement investigation and after we’ve completed work to further safeguard our service. https://t.co/8mN4NYWZ3O
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 31, 2020
The main difficulty for investigators was that bitcoin, being a cryptocurrency, is difficult to trace in fraud theft. According to the State Attorney's Office, the FBI and the US Department of Justice have identified the suspect following a complex nationwide investigation.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hearings must take place online through the popular Zoom service. The broadcast was publicly available, but administrators were apparently unable to set appropriate privacy settings for participants: for example, set a password for them. It led to several people connecting to the conversation under the guise of CNN and BBC journalists. The unknown turned out to be prankers – they started interrupting the judge, using foul language, and turning on rap songs.
Well perhaps unsurprisingly the accused Twitter hacker-Bitcoin thief’s first (virtual) hearing was shut down within 25 minutes due to relentless Zoombombing. (It ended a minute after this when someone screenshared a Porn Hub video.) pic.twitter.com/fGiceq4WfN
— Jen Wieczner (@jenwieczner) August 5, 2020
As a result, one of the prankers turned on a video from Pornhub, a popular service with adult videos, and shared it to the general screen.
Ayooooooo!!! Hacker from my city peep the live stream!!! #Hacker #HackerTampa 😂😂😂 @KEEMSTAR enjoy !! pic.twitter.com/qh1OjwPaKb
— Jay Negron #OTOD (@JayCesar_sB) August 5, 2020
Almost a minute after the porn video appeared on the general screen, the judge had to suspend the hearing. The online meeting had lasted less than half an hour. After the break, returning to the broadcast did not help as the prankers continued to do their job.
Predictably, the Zoom hearing for the 17-year-old alleged Twitter hacker in Fla. was bombed multiple times, with the final bombing of a pornhub clip ending the zoom portion of the proceedings.
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) August 5, 2020
During this time, Graham Clark's lawyers only managed to ask the court to reduce the amount of bail from $750 thousand to a more reasonable one, but the judge rejected such a petition.
Graham Ivan Clark became the mastermind of a scheme that helped him gained control of Twitter accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities, and technology moguls. On Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty for multiple fraud counts. He worked together with a 22-year-old Orlando girl known as "Rolex" and a 19-year-old Briton under the pseudonym "Chaewon."
Clark is now in prison. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren has filed 30 fraud charges against him. He is charged with 17 counts of communications fraud, 11 counts of fraudulent use of personal information, and one count each of organized fraud of more than $5,000 and accessing computers or electronic devices without authority. His trial will continue in Hillsborough County, as he lives in Tampa and committed the crime here.