Another 16-Year-Old Suspect Linked to Twitter Hack

The New York Times has reported the emergence of another suspect in the high-profile Twitter hack case. To recap, in mid-June 2020, Twitter suffered the largest cyberattack in its history. Numerous accounts belonging to public figures, companies, and cryptocurrency exchanges were compromised. Victims included Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Warren Buffett, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Apple, Uber, and major crypto exchanges like CoinDesk, Binance, and Gemini.

Soon after the incident, U.S. law enforcement announced the arrest of the main “mastermind” behind the Twitter hack: 17-year-old Graham Ivan Clark from Florida, who is reportedly known online as Kirk. Clark faces 30 charges and will be tried as an adult.

A joint investigation by the FBI, IRS, Department of Justice, and Secret Service also identified two accomplices: 19-year-old Mason “Chaewon” Sheppard from the UK and 22-year-old Nima “Rolex” Fazeli from Florida.

New Suspect from Massachusetts

Now, The New York Times has revealed that, in addition to Clark, another 16-year-old from Massachusetts was allegedly involved in planning the attack and compromising the accounts of well-known individuals and companies. The teenager’s name has not been disclosed because he is a minor.

According to the report, the new suspect has not yet been arrested, but the FBI has already searched his parents’ home, where he lives. Little is currently known about this Massachusetts suspect. Like the other hackers, he was a user of the OGusers forum and previously engaged in “vishing”—tricking company employees over the phone by posing as a contractor to steal login credentials. He later moved on to SIM swapping and other forms of fraud, which led to his online acquaintance with Clark. The report also states that the teenager was involved in a spring 2020 attack on the domain registrar GoDaddy.

Interestingly, the publication notes that the unnamed teenager, along with Clark, posted fraudulent tweets from the compromised accounts. Previously, it was believed that Clark was the only group member who accessed Twitter’s internal tools and used them during the attack.