illustration, a Twitter logo is displayed on a mobile phone on May
27, 2020, in Arlington, Virginia. Olivier DOULIERY /
AFP
Criminal charges were filed on Friday against the
suspected teenage mastermind of an epic Twitter hack and two others
who allegedly helped hijack celebrity accounts to swindle people
out of more than $100,000 in a cryptocurrency scheme.
Prosecutors in Florida said they filed 30 felony counts against
17-year-old resident of the state identified as the “mastermind” of
the cyberattack. He was arrested in Tampa, Hillsborough State
Attorney Andrew Warren said.
Separately, the US Attorney’s Office in San Francisco announced
charges against three people, one of them from Britain, for roles
in the mid-July cyberattack that rocked Twitter.
US officials said 19-year-old Mason “Chaewon” Sheppard of
Britain along with Nima Fazeli, 22, of Florida face criminal
charges in the case.
Details about the third individual were not released by US
officials because he is a minor, but it appeared they were
referring to the Florida teenager being prosecuted as adult in that
state.
The attack on Twitter involved a combination of “technical
breaches and social engineering” that let hackers hijack accounts
of politicians, celebrities, and musicians, according to federal
prosecutors.
Follow the money
The three defendants are accused of hacking Twitter accounts,
creating a scam Bitcoin account, and sending out imposter tweets
from hijacked account offering to double Bitcoin
cryptocurrency deposits.
“This case serves as a great example of how following the money,
international collaboration, and public-private partnerships can
work to successfully take down a perceived anonymous criminal
enterprise,” said criminal investigation special agent Kelly
Jackson of the Internal Revenue Service.
The attack which Twitter said resulted from a “phone spear
phishing” attack enabled hackers to take control of accounts of
famous people such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk and former US president
Barack Obama and dupe people into sending Bitcoin.
“These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people
and celebrities, but they’re not the primary victims here,” Warren
said in a release.
“This ‘Bit-Con’ was designed to steal money from regular
Americans from all over the country.”
Scamming by phone
Hackers who accessed dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts in
mid-July gained access to the system with an attack that tricked a
handful of employees into giving up their credentials, according to
a company update.
Twitter said this week that the July 15 incident by Bitcoin
scammers stemmed from a “spear phishing” attack which deceived
employees about the origin of the messages.
Jack Dorsey.
The hackers “targeted a small number of employees through a
phone spear phishing attack,” according to a Twitter Support
statement.
“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to
mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain
access to our internal systems.”
Twitter said that following the incident it has “significantly
limited access to our internal tools and systems” and is taking
additional steps to tighten security.
The massive hack of high-profile users from Elon Musk to Joe
Biden affected at least 130 accounts, with tweets posted by the
usurpers duping people into sending Bitcoin to accounts that Warren
said were associated with Clark.
The official accounts of Apple, Uber, Kanye West, Bill Gates,
Barack Obama and others were also affected.
Faked tweets were sent from 45 accounts, according to Twitter,
and the hackers accessed private messages of 36 and downloaded
Twitter data from seven.
The incident has raised concerns about the security of the
platform increasingly used for conversations on politics and public
affairs.
John Dickson of the security firm Denim Group said the latest
disclosure did not necessarily suggest a sophisticated attack from
a nation-state and noted it may have been possible to find targets
through research on LinkedIn or Google.
“This is like the original hackers from the 1980s and 1990s;
they were very good at conning people and getting them to give
their credentials,” Dickson said.
AFP
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