Florida teenager Graham Ivan Clark accused of participating in a massive hack of more than 100 high-profile Twitter accounts as part of a cryptocurrency scam has pleaded not guilty to all charges. According to the Bloomberg report, the 17-year-old entered his not guilty plea to 30 charges on Tuesday in a Hillsborough Circuit Court and was scheduled for a bail hearing on Wednesday. Clark was indicted on a slew of fraud charges last week, accused of illegally gaining access to the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, former President Barack Obama, and others to put out tweets soliciting bitcoins.
Accused attackers scammed $100,000 worth bitcoins from the hack.
Prosecutors said more than $100,000 in the cryptocurrency was sent from some 400 accounts in one day. Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, in England, and Nima Fazeli, of Orlando, were also changed last week in connection to the July 15 hack. According to their indictments, Sheppard was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the intentional access of a protected computer while Fazeli was charged with aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer.
The attackers gained access to accounts through a coordinated social engineering attack.
The social media giant Twitter revealed that the hackers gained access to more than 100 high profile Twitter accounts through a coordinated social engineering attack targeting the accounts of employees at the tech company. Hackers also gained access to direct messages of high profile accounts and downloaded data of eight accounts. However, those eight accounts were not verified. The Florida teenager, who is claimed to the mastermind behind the heist, has 300 bitcoin (currently worth about $3.35 million). He was arrested on July 31 and is facing 30 felonies. The prosecutors had set $725,000 bail for the accused, which is six times what he is accused of stealing through the Twitter hack.
