Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

US Charges Three People for Roles in Epic Twitter Hack

US prosecutors on Friday announced they have charged three people, one of them from Britain, for roles in hijacking celebrity Twitter accounts and tricking people out of money.

US prosecutors on Friday announced they have charged three people, one of them from Britain, for roles in hijacking celebrity Twitter accounts and tricking people out of money.

The US attorney’s office in California said 19-year-old Mason “Chaewon” Sheppard of Britain along with Nima Fazeli, 22, of Florida were facing criminal charges in the case.

Details about the third individual were not released by US officials, but state prosecutors in Florida separately announced criminal charges against a 17-year-old accused of masterminding the massive hack of high-profile Twitter users.

The attack on Twitter involved a combination of “technical breaches and social engineering” that let hackers hijack accounts of politicians, celebrities, and musicians, according to federal prosecutors.

The three defendants are accused of hacking Twitter accounts, creating a scam Bitcoin account, and sending out imposter tweets from hijacked account offering to double cryptocurrency deposits.

“This case serves as a great example of how following the money, international collaboration, and public-private partnerships can work to successfully take down a perceived anonymous criminal enterprise,” said IRS criminal investigation special agent Kelly Jackson.

State Prosecutors in Florida said they filed 30 felony counts against a 17-year-old Florida resident they described as the “mastermind” of the cyberattack.

The you, arrested in Tampa, will be tried as an adult in Florida, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

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.

“These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they’re not the primary victims here,” Warren said in a release.

“This ‘Bit-Con’ was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country.”

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.