Teen ‘mastermind’ gets arrested for massive Twitter attack

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Rather than state-sponsored hackers, the Twitter hacker is someone too young to vote.
Photo: sebastiaan stam/Pexels CC

In mid July, a hacker gained access to Apple’s Twitter account, along with those other corporations, high-profile politicians, and celebrities. At the time, there was speculation it was done by Russian hackers. Or perhaps they were Chinese. Some pointed fingers at international criminal gangs.

Nope. Turns out it was a 17-year-old kid from Tampa.

At least, that’s who got arrested for breaking into the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, Vice President Joe Biden, Kanye West and many more. Including Apple.

Twitter hacker is just a kid

The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office arrested Graham Clark early Friday morning for being the Twitter hacker, according to WFLA. He’s being charged with multiple accounts of fraud.

The teen allegedly hacked Twitter to give himself access to any account he wanted. Pretending to be the real account holders, he asked readers to send him Bitcoins — an untraceable payment method.

A fraudulent post from July 15 on the @apple Twitter account read, before being deleted, “We are giving back to our community. We support Bitcoin and we believe you should too! All Bitcoin is sent to our address below will be sent back to you doubled!”

Twitter was quick to applaud the arrest of this alleged hacker. It said, via Twitter (of course), “We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses.”

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