Individuals: two from Florida and one based in the UK were indicted Friday for their alleged roles in a large-scale hack of social media Twitter, the US Department of Justice announced Friday.
The announcement is the latest progression after a breach of security on July 15 and 16 that saw the accounts of some of Twitter’s top users, former President Barack Obama, collected and used to announce a cryptocurrency scam.
Mason Sheppard (also known as “Chaewon”) by Bognor Regis in the UK is 19 years old and has been charged in connection with a criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of California for conspiracy to devote electronic fraud, conspiracy to devote cash washing and access to a computer. (Read the criminal complaint here).
Nima Fazeli (also known as “Rolex”) in Orlando, Florida, is 22 years old. He was indicted in a criminal’s complaint of assisting and instigating intentional access to a computer. (Read the criminal complaint here).
A third defendant has not been identified by federal authorities. The Justice Department said it referred the individual to the state attorney of the 13th District of Justice in Tampa, Florida. However, a Hillsborough state attorney, Andrew Warren, named the individual Graham Ivan Clark, 17, a resident of Tampa, Florida. Warren said Clark was “the mastermind of the recent Twitter attack.”
According to the indictment, the hackers compromised more than a hundred social media accounts and used them to “scam” account holders and other Twitter users who sent cash to promoted BitCoin accounts hacked accounts.
Although the piracy hypothesis at the time was aimed at complicated adversaries or hacking teams affiliated with a nation-state, there was initial evidence that the attacks on Twitter were paintings of young and relatively green hackers. Immediately after the rape, conversations between stakeholders or familiar with the scheme and conducted on the Discord platform with journalists, security researchers and others exposed a vaguely organized scheme through 3 hackers who met online and shared enthusiasm for exotic people. social media account names.
In all the attacks, the criminals contributed about $100,000 to a lot of BitCoin transfers. Twitter was forced to suspend posting verified Twitter accounts for hours while investigating the breach and securing its surroundings.
It also exposed flagrant security weaknesses on one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. A July 23 Reuters report said more than 1,000 Twitter workers had access to the platform used to manage accounts, a shocking number given by A-list users on the platform, adding bill Gates, former President Barack Obama and democratic candidate Joe in all likelihood. Biden. Such extensive access has made it more difficult to protect the platform.
In a video statement, Federal District Attorney David L.Anderson of the Northern District said the investigation is ongoing. “If you have any data or have been concerned about the VIP attack on Twitter, identify yourself. This investigation will continue, anyway.”
I am editor-in-chief of The Security Ledger, host of The Security Ledger Podcast and founder of SecuRepairs.org, an organization of data security professionals who
I am editor-in-chief of The Security Ledger, host of The Security Ledger Podcast and founder of SecuRepairs.org, an organization of data security professionals who have the right to repair. I am a journalist, editor and industry analyst with more than 17 years of experience in the field of data security (“cyber”). My writings have been printed in publications such as The Christian Science Monitor, MIT Technology Review, The Economist Intelligence Unit, CIO Magazine and Network World. I’ve given the impression on Marketplace Tech Report from NPR, KPCC AirTalk, Fox News Tech Take, Al Jazeera and The Oprah Show.