By Dominic Taylor
A teenager from Florida who hacked some of the most high-profile accounts on Twitter last year was trained to hack accounts for years.
Graham Ivan Clark was jailed for 3 years after gaining access to accounts belonging to Elon Musk,(pictured) Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Apple and Uber to name a few, using them to orchestrate a large-scale Bitcoin scam.
The 17-year-old fraudulently used their respective profiles on twitter to ask people to donate money to help coronavirus efforts in the form of Bitcoin, amassing more than $117,000 in the cryptocurrency.
On Tuesday, March 16, Clark pled guilty to the charges against him and was handed a three-year sentence. Though he was charged as an adult – he is now 18 years old – he will be sentenced as a youthful offender. Two others, Nima Fazeli of Orlando and Mason Sheppard of the United Kingdom, were also charged with federal crimes related to the scheme.
Upon his release, he will be banned from using any electronic devices without permission from law enforcement. He must also hand over passwords to any online accounts he owns.
An old friend of Clark by the name of Joe, told The Eye Of Media.Com that Clark spent hours being trained about hacking from his early teens. He said: ”Clark is a waste of talent because he should have used his strengths differently.
He spent a lot of time learning about hacking for at least the best part of two years. This guy always liked being one step ahead of others whenever he could. He had an interest in software, and it became almost an obsession.
He would read books about software, and spent time with one IT engineer at least for a many months between 2015 and 2016. He spent a lot of time practising hacking IT systems, It is no surprise to me he aimed this big and landed himself in trouble”
His defense attorney, David Weisbrod, confirmed that Clark had turned over all the cryptocurrency he had acquired.
Twitter users were perplexed July 15 when accounts belonging to several celebrities, political figures and well-known corporations began tweeting strange messages.
“I am giving back to the community,” tweeted the account belonging to President Joe Biden. “All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes … Enjoy!”
Accountability
‘Graham Clark needs to be held accountable for that crime, and other potential scammers out there need to see the consequences,’ Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement to the publication.
‘In this case, we’ve been able to deliver those consequences while recognizing that our goal with any child, whenever possible, is to have them learn their lesson without destroying their future,’ he added..
The hacker had found Twitter employees on LinkedIn, and then used features LinkedIn makes available to job recruiters to access employees’ phone numbers and contact information, Ars Technica reports.
One tweet the fraudulent teenager sent from Bill Gates’ profile, proposed that the billionaire would be doubling all donations he received.
‘Everyone is asking me to give back. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000,’ he wrote.
The money has since been returned to the victims. Two other teens – Nima Fazeli from Orlando and Mason Sheppard from Bognor Regis – have also been charged in the case, although authorities said Clark is the ‘mastermind behind the scam.