He Was 17. Then Obama's Twitter Asked for Bitcoin.

Obama. Musk. Apple. On July 15, 2020, their Twitter accounts promoted a bitcoin giveaway scam. Behind the takeover was a group that included 17-year-old Graham Ivan Clark. The attackers targeted 130 accounts and tweeted from 45. Phone spear phishing opened access to Twitter’s internal tools; chat records and cryptocurrency transactions helped investigators connect online aliases to real people. Initial arrests followed 16 days after the attack. Follow the takeover, the evidence trail and the separate cases that followed. Clark pleaded guilty in Florida state court in March 2021 and received three years in prison plus three years of probation. Joseph James O’Connor later received a five-year federal sentence covering his role in the Twitter hack and other cybercrimes. Subscribe to The Cr