by Mary Rose Corkery
A 17-year-old from Tampa, Florida, was arrested Friday for allegedly carrying out the massive Twitter hacking scam on July 15, according to WFLA.
Graham Ivan Clark was arrested Friday around 6 a.m. and faces 30 felony charges in the alleged scam, which prosecutors have dubbed the “Bit-Con” hack, according to a press release from Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew H. Warren.
The hacker allegedly used a phone phishing scam to target various Twitter employees in order to gain insider and other employee information in order to obtain Twitter support mechanisms, according to a Twitter Support blog post.
#BREAKING: Tampa teen arrested for July 15 @Twitter hack that affected accounts belonging to people including @BarackObama, @BillGates & @elonmusk. Suspect is 17, according to @AndrewWarrenFL's Office. Details: https://t.co/nFuMkrLla6
— Ryan Hughes (@RyanHughesNews) July 31, 2020
Citing national security concerns, the FBI launched an investigation to find out who was behind the hack, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported based on Department of Justice sources familiar with the inquiry.
“I want to congratulate our federal law enforcement partners—the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the FBI, the IRS, and the Secret Service—as well as the Florida Department of Law enforcement,” Warren said in the press release.
“They worked quickly to investigate and identify the perpetrator of a sophisticated and extensive fraud,” Warren said.
“This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he’ll be prosecuted here,” Warren said.
Several high-profile Twitter accounts, including former president Barack Obama and former Vice president Joe Biden, were hacked and posted messages July 15 linking to a bitcoin site, according to the Twitter posts.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s accounts were also compromised, according to WFLA. In total, 130 Twitter accounts were compromised, according to a statement from Twitter support.
The FBI did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation for comment.
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Mary Rose Corkery is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
