A US teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking several high-profile Twitter accounts in a large-scale Bitcoin scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Graham Ivan Clark was 17 when he co-ordinated the scam – which hijacked the profiles of celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Barack Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He would spend three years in prison as part of his plea deal, a Florida court filing said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Clark has already served 229 days of this three-year sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now 18, but sentenced as a “youthful offender”, he may also be able to serve some of the sentence at a boot camp, the Tampa Bay Times reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Clark will also be banned from using computers without permission and supervision from law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scam
The hack, on 15 July last year, promoted a scam in which hijacked celebrity accounts encouraged followers to donate bitcoin to coronavirus-relief projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Everyone is asking me to give back,” a tweet purportedly sent from Mr Gates’s account said. “You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than $117,000 (\u00a384,200) of the cryptocurrency was collected through the scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The money had been handed to the authorities to be returned to the victims, Clark’s lawyer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was alleged Clark had imitated a member of Twitter staff to gain access to the company’s networks and worked with two other hackers to complete the heist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, and Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, have been charged with federal crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family of Mr Sheppard have declined to comment and the Home Office said it “does not comment on extradition requests”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A US teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking several high-profile Twitter accounts in a large-scale Bitcoin scam. Graham Ivan Clark was 17 when he co-ordinated the scam – which hijacked the profiles…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n