Twitter Hackers Arrested! [Updated]

[iRaMMuS34]

I wonder if he'll have to work for the government while he's doing his time. Definitely worth using his talent in a benevolent way

[bitterguy28]

I wonder if he'll have to work for the government while he's doing his time. Definitely worth using his talent in a benevolent way

Same with my thinking right now. With his capabilities, this talent can be use by the government.

There's a good place for him to develop more without breaking any laws again, if he will enhance his skills by helping the government

he will be more useful from his chosen filled.

[Yatsan]

It was really shocking to know that the people behind the big hack of Twitter accounts of some famous personalities are just teenagers. It is amazing how those teenagers have thought and executed such crime even at a younf age. Surely they were gifted with talent when it comes to technology and hacking techniques. It is just awful that the talent they have was used in a very wrong way which is to commit a crime. For sure they would take the consequences of their actions behind bars even at such a young age they have. At this time they have already wasted their talents and of course their life for committing a big crime. Imagine hacking the well-known personalities Twitter accounts and taking down tons of amount of money. That will surely be sentenced with many cases in exchange.

Kids at this times do possess a very big minds to do impossible things possible even at a very young age. It was just veey awful that they did not use such talents for good. Up to this point of time I still doubt that those teenagers are alone to execute such crime maybe they have some old ones with them and they were just the ones being busted for such act. But if they really did do it just on their own, they are really amazing but such a waste of gifted knowledge and talent because they just use it for crime.

[Sutters Mill]

Reminds me of the Ross Ulbricht situation where he was a smart guy but got by one simple screw up that was tied to him personally.

Not an ordinary kid, the Prosecutor is right because this kid has some special talent which can be use to grow himself in techy world but this kid was wrong on committing a crime that could take his freedom and develop his skills. Maybe he thought this is just a game, they are playing with it but not knowing how they'll end up if they got caught.

I read in the news that these hackers were able to amassed around $100k of bitcoin, but not sure on how much they really make in total, maybe higher, but it doesn't matter now, what matter is the perpetrator got arrested and their scams has stopped, for sure this is a group, hopefully he will cooperate so others will be arrested too and pay for their crimes.

https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/1283594532140056576

I don't have any sympathy for them. They knew what they were doing and they were trying to scam innocent people (though you had to be pretty stupid to fall for their obvious doubler scam). They were apparently making a lot of money hacking into old and abandoned twitter accounts and selling them for big money. If you have a twitter with an in demand name or and 'OG' account you can sell them for quite a lot.

I wonder if he'll have to work for the government while he's doing his time. Definitely worth using his talent in a benevolent way

Why would he have to work for them? He'll get a prison term not a slavery deal.

I wonder if he'll have to work for the government while he's doing his time. Definitely worth using his talent in a benevolent way

Same with my thinking right now. With his capabilities, this talent can be use by the government.

There's a good place for him to develop more without breaking any laws again, if he will enhance his skills by helping the government

he will be more useful from his chosen filled.

Maybe he should have used his talents better in the first place and got a good paying job rather than becoming a cyber thief.

[BuNga_cute]

To be honest, I was surprised to find out that Twitter hackers turned out to only 3 teenagers. This is totally unexpected,
I imagine the culprit is some professional hackers. But the reality is quite surprising, even though this is a technological
crime which has a big effect.Imagine what was hacked was a famous peoples account, surely the victims are very many.
And the penalties that are accepted 3 teen hackers this is definitely quite heavy.

[supine]

Damn I remember back when I was 17 years old my mind was all about online games and hanging out with my friends and this kid already done something like this alarming and for sure he wouldn't be enjoying the next year's of his life.
I also doubt that it was only him that made this mess maybe he got some help but doesn't want to or he is afraid to tell who help him.

[htsy585]

It's really surprising that a 17 year old teen pull up such a massive hack on twitter, with all the felony charges against him, he will serve not less than 20 years if found quilty of those crimes. This is sure a challenge for mega platforms to up their game to prevent their servers from being preyed on by hackers

[Qcrypto]

Rather than sentencing him to jail, they will probably "hire" him in the FBI as a counter-hacking agent

[Erumo]

Rather than sentencing him to jail, they will probably "hire" him in the FBI as a counter-hacking agent

The guy has already committed a crime. Do you think it will be wise to give all the resources FBI have? Just imagine what he can do and hide his trails. Giving him a job in FBI means encouraging him. He wont learn a lesson from it.

No doubt the kid has a talent, but he used it in a wrong direction.

[suvo05]

Rather than sentencing him to jail, they will probably "hire" him in the FBI as a counter-hacking agent

The guy has already committed a crime. Do you think it will be wise to give all the resources FBI have? Just imagine what he can do and hide his trails. Giving him a job in FBI means encouraging him. He wont learn a lesson from it.

No doubt the kid has a talent, but he used it in a wrong direction.

Yea, its kind of a criminal mentality they satisfies them self by doing things against the law, this kind of job thrills them. The total psychological mind of such a person should explore before assigning any job like FBI, else he is capable of doing something horribaly extraordinary.

[AakZaki]

For sure this kid isn't alone. The other two were just accessories, obviously hackers won't get caught being too stupid for sending scammed Btc in a centralized exchange lol.
Nevertheless, the US law enforcement did a really good job for busting a blockbuster account breaching in Twitter.
I'm just wondering, the article didn't mentioned about confiscating the scammed Btc. Are the victims will receive back their Btc if they can provide a valid claim through the blockchain record?

I have the same thoughts as you. these three teenagers might still have another organized group to launch this attack on Twitter and manage all of their strategies. Teen 17 only became a mascot and two of them became accessories. This case must be explored in more depth to find out all their networks so as not to leave the other suspects or even the people who are really behind all this hacking. These teenage geniuses did the wrong thing by doing hacks that hurt everyone.

For BTC obtained from scammed, it will probably be returned to the owner according to the record of the transaction carried out in blockchain, perhaps waiting for all the trials to finish, because this BTC is still a strong evidence to ensnare them into prison.

[KrisAlex18]

It was nearly unbelievable to know that the people behind the big hack that happened to Twitter that hacked the accounts of the well-known personalities are just teenagers. It is so doubtful to think how those teenagers be capable to setting up such a big crime at their very young age. How did they make that thing happen or how did they acquire such amazing talent that seems to be wasted because they have used it for bad doings. I still cannot believe that they are the ones responsible for that crime. If they really are, I think they have other people together working with them because it is really quite impossible to think how a group of teenagers be able to hack a big and well-known social media platform and to think even hacked big personalities account and stole a big bunch of money.

I think those teenagers are just the dummy to hide the big masterminds behind that crime. But if they really did it on their own, that was a very surprising and amazing part to believe how they have done such. It is just that they have wasted their talent and knowledge which can be a good asset if they have chosen to use it for good.

[Welsh]

Rather than sentencing him to jail, they will probably "hire" him in the FBI as a counter-hacking agent

AFAIK, the way that he gained access to these accounts wasn't anything particularly impressive. I haven't been keeping up to date with it, and I've only skimmed over it, but it seemed like it was either a social engineering a representative of Twitter which allowed them to gain access to the internal tools, or they simply compromised one of the staff of Twitter. This might have been a simple way of gaining access, and there's no reason to believe that this was a particularly impressive feat. I know that the prosecutor suggesting that this teenager wasn't the typical teenager, but without specifics its hard to draw a conclusion to what it meant by that statement, and in what context.

Although, I think this teenager will be made an example of. Its very rare for so many high profile accounts to be hacked, and used as a outright scam in a small amount of time. Also, what's the verdict on the stolen money? How are they going to be handling that situation?   

[aundroid]

AFAIK, the way that he gained access to these accounts wasn't anything particularly impressive. I haven't been keeping up to date with it, and I've only skimmed over it, but it seemed like it was either a social engineering a representative of Twitter which allowed them to gain access to the internal tools, or they simply compromised one of the staff of Twitter. This might have been a simple way of gaining access, and there's no reason to believe that this was a particularly impressive feat.

According to the official Twitter support, the attackers have targeted an employee via a "phone spear phishing" attack.
How such an attack could be performed is described here, for example:
- A Twitter employee could have received a message on his phone to call a certain number
- The employee is then forwarded to a fake helpdesk employee
- The fake helpdesk employee uses social engineering techniques to trick the Twitter employee into handing over his access data

[nelson4lov]

I had thought a well known hacker group would be responsible.  I'm sure nobody would've expected a bunch of teenagers to get passed twitter's security walls. While the incident wasn't anything spectacular or new (social engineering ish), it goes to show how easy it was to get access to some high level stuffs at twitter with little efforts. Funny thing is the hack happened months earlier, it only came to light and twitter didn't know about it. when it was used for making scammy tweets.

Makes me wonder how secured our data and accounts on big platforms like twitter are.

[verita1]

Graham Ivan Clark, 17, of Tampa. Unfortunately he has a criminal mind. With the Twitter attack there are already 30 criminal charges against him. The defense attorney argues the following in addition to stating that his client has more than $ 3 million worth of Bitcoin.

"I can think of no greater indication of legitimacy than law enforcement giving the money back," said Weisbrod. I asked the judge to set bail at $ 20,000.

The judge decided to set bail at $ 25,000 per 29 counts. For the 30th charge, the judge ordered that if Clark posts bail he must wear an electronic monitor and be confined to his home, except for visits to the doctor or his attorney. The judge barred him from accessing the internet on any device and ordered the 17-year-old to surrender his passport if he has one. "

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2020/08/01/twitter-teen-makes-first-court-appearance-in-tampa/%3foutputType=amp

The Twitter employees who were bribed. What about them? and his accomplices. Possibly we will know more at the trial.

[LogitechMouse]

Rather than sentencing him to jail, they will probably "hire" him in the FBI as a counter-hacking agent

I know only one person who committed crime (more serious than this crime) and currently working and roaming freely. He is Kevin Mitnick (just google search it ).

I know that this teenager committed a crime but I know that he can be helpful with the other high ranked organizations like CIA and FBI with his hacking skills. The only mistake that he did is that he used his skills in a negative way instead of being a white hat hacker.

[ice18]

I dont believe that this hackers are clever enough or just used phishing links to steal staff account and managed to collect email and password of those twitter profiles, did they actually penetrate the security system of twitter? or just a fault of a staff? If they are good enough in hacking then try to secure first not to locate their identity before doing any stupid acts. 

[pooya87]

Reminds me of the Ross Ulbricht situation where he was a smart guy but got by one simple screw up that was tied to him personally.

this was not a simple screw up though! they were all in the same circles on same websites with their real IP addresses (no Tor or anything) and were also signed up on centralized custodial wallets like Coinbase with again the same IP address and their wallets were also linked to the same address they used to scam!

what they did was more like going to rob a bank and then taking your drivers license out to show it to the camera with your face and the bag of money in your other hand

[Kakmakr]

Reminds me of the Ross Ulbricht situation where he was a smart guy but got by one simple screw up that was tied to him personally.

this was not a simple screw up though! they were all in the same circles on same websites with their real IP addresses (no Tor or anything) and were also signed up on centralized custodial wallets like Coinbase with again the same IP address and their wallets were also linked to the same address they used to scam!

what they did was more like going to rob a bank and then taking your drivers license out to show it to the camera with your face and the bag of money in your other hand

#pooya87 I want to agree with you on this one... It seems more like amateur hour script kiddies hack to me. Someone might even have used them as a puppet, by showing them how to do this, knowing that it would lead to their arrest.

How do you make that many mistakes and think you can get away with that? They used no mixer services, leading to a Blockchain breadcrumb trail back to them on a centralized exchange? (They did not even have to make use of Chainanalysis to compile that information)  

I hope they recovered enough of the money for restitution to the victims of this scam, but unfortunately no amount of money will restore the damage that was done to the reputation of Twitter and Bitcoin.