San Francisco: Graham Ivan Clark, a teenager behind the unprecedented Twitter hack of July last year that compromised high-profile accounts belonging to Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, among others, has been sent to three years in prison as part of his plea deal.
According to The Tampa Bay Times, the teenager took control of celebrity accounts and used them to gain more than $100,000 in Bitcoin.
“In a deal with prosecutors, Clark agreed to serve three years in prison, followed by three years probation,” the report said on Tuesday.
Clark was 17 when he was accused of masterminding the Twitter hack.
The agreement has allowed Clark, now 18, to be sentenced as a “youthful offender,” avoiding a minimum 10-year sentence that would have followed if he’d been convicted as an adult.
“Graham Clark needs to be held accountable for that crime, and other potential scammers out there need to see the consequences,” Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement.
“In this case, we’ve been able to deliver those consequences while recognizing that our goal with any child, whenever possible, is to have them learn their lesson without destroying their future.”
Authorities said the scam netted about $117,000 in Bitcoin before it was shut down.
Twitter later revealed more details in the massive crypto hack, saying the hackers accessed the DM (direct message) inbox of up to 36 of the 130 targeted users, including one elected official in the Netherlands.
In total, 130 accounts were targeted by attackers, 45 accounts had Tweets sent by attackers, 36 accounts had the DM inbox accessed and eight accounts had an archive of “Your Twitter Data” downloaded (none of these was verified), informed Twitter.
