US teen charged as ‘mastermind’ in epic Twitter hack via TheCitizen_News
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.
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.involved a combination of “technical breaches and social engineering” that let hackers hijack accounts of politicians, celebrities, and musicians, according to federal prosecutors.The mid-July hack of celebrity Twitter accounts sought to get people to send Bitcoin with a promise of doubling their money.
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. 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.
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. Faked tweets were sent from 45 accounts, according to Twitter, and the hackers accessed private messages of 36 and downloaded Twitter data from seven.
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