Elon Musk Twitter Hacker Faces 3 Years in Prison
Last July, the Twitters of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Apple were all hacked in a Bitcoin scam, and now the person responsible will face criminal charges.
Tuesday, Graham Clark, 18, pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida, and will now be subject to three years in prison, plus a subsequent three years on probation, according to a report from the Tampa Bay Times.
The hack compromised the Twitter accounts of Musk, Gates, Obama, and Apple, with Clark sharing a fraudulent tweet saying “All Bitcoin sent to our address below will be sent back to you doubled!”
Twitter hacker agrees to 3-year prison sentence in plea deal. Feds described Graham Clark as "mastermind" behind breach last summer into accounts belonging to Apple, as well as Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and others to solicit bitcoin https://t.co/VCY2RShF3J
— Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) March 16, 2021
Through the hack, Clark solicited about $117,000 (USD) in Bitcoin before the scheme was taken down. Similar attacks have been propagated in recent months, including one in which an individual lost $500,000 (USD) from a link posted in response to one of Musk’s actual tweets.
Clark’s attack was prior to the US election which led to theories that state-sponsored hackers may have lodged the hack. It also led to concerns over Twitter’s security systems, which was later probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Musk has posted about his support for Bitcoin and Dogecoin a number of times in recent months, though it should be noted that he never asks his followers to give him any of the cryptocurrencies – he’s got enough money as it is, and if he seems to be asking for crypto support, it’s probably a scam.