Photo by FitNish Media on Unsplash [Download]

Decrypted: How a teenager hacked Twitter, Garmins ransomware aftermath

A 17-year-old Florida teenager is accused of perpetrating one of the years biggest and most high-profile hacks: Twitter.

A federal 30-count indictment filed in Tampa said Graham Ivan Clark used a phone spearphishing attack to pivot through multiple layers of Twitters security and bypassed its two-factor authentication to gain access to an internal admin tool that let the hacker take over any account.

It was, by all accounts, a sophisticated attack that required technical skills and an ability to trick and deceive to pull off the scam.

Some security professionals were impressed, comparing the attack to one that had the finesse and professionalism of a well-resourced nation-state attacker.

But with control of some of the worlds most popular Twitter accounts, Clark was for a few hours in July one of the most powerful people in the world.

Original article
Author: Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker writes about cybersecurity for TechCrunch. You can send tips securely via Signal and WhatsApp to +1 646-755-8849, and his PGP fingerprint for email is: 4D0E 92F2 E36A EC51 DAAE 5D97 CB8C 15FA EB6C EEA5. He can also be reached by email: zack.whittaker@techcrunch.com.

Zack Whittaker has recently written 7 articles on similar topics including :
  1. "A ransomware group known as CLOP was behind the March attack". (April 27, 2020)
  2. "The breach occurred in March". (March 26, 2020)
  3. "The company has 55 fertility clinics across the U.S". (November 26, 2020)
  4. "Maze, a data-stealing ransomware, typically publishes the data if a ransom is not paid". (April 18, 2020)
  5. "The Snake ransomware is believed to be the cause". (June 9, 2020)
  6. "The company said it expects its systems to return to normal in the coming days". (July 27, 2020)
  7. "The WastedLocker ransomware, used by a notorious Russian hacking group, is said to be to blame". (July 25, 2020)
Posted on  ,