MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2020) The hackers behind the recent Twitter hack which saw accounts of prominent figures compromised have reached out to The New York Times, the paper reported, detailing the operation that was coordinated from the United States and the United Kingdom and involved a person who claimed he was a Twitter employee.
The group was made up of four individuals, one of whom had access to sensitive Twitter tools. They are young men living in the United States and the United Kingdom who met over the Discord messenger app, the paper reported.
The two individuals who reached out � they go by the usernames "lol" and "ever so anxious" � told the Times that they did not believe that the person linked to Twitter, "Kirk," was willing to go ahead with the hacks.
The paper said that the real-world identities of the individuals remain unknown but that "lol" was a man in his 20s living on the US west coast, while "ever so anxious" was a 19-year-old living with his mother in the UK.
A screenshot of one of their conversations released by The New York Times showed "Kirk" claiming "i work at twitter." However, "lol" subsequently said he did not believe "Kirk" was a Twitter employee.
According to what the Times says it has learned, the group was involved in gathering and selling rare and desired Twitter usernames which contained single letters or numbers, such as @6 or @y.
The group had initially planned to use "Kirk's" powers to access and manipulate virtually any Twitter account to take over lesser accounts with these desirable handles, which they then planned to sell for thousands of Dollars, the Times reported.
The group coordinated their efforts over Discord and placed the acquired usernames on a well-known hacker platform OGusers.com. A hacker known as PlugWalkJoe acquired the username @6 for $1,500, but alleges that he had nothing to do with the subsequent hacks.
According to the evidence provided, "ever so anxious" had disengaged and gone to sleep, due to time difference between the US and UK, before the hacking of prominent accounts began.
By the time Twitter had caught up with Kirk's actions, the company said that 130 accounts were accessed and 45 were used to send tweets. Only a complete pause on using the account from verified, or so-called blue-ticked accounts, put a stop to the hack.
Accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk and many other users with millions of followers were compromised on Wednesday when tweets appeared asking followers to send bitcoins to receive double the amount back. Kirk has since been out of reach.
In later messages shared between the group, they expressed their frustration that "Kirk" was only able to make the bitcoin equivalent of $180,000 and not more.
The hack is the largest the company has ever experienced which may put a dent in the security reputation of what is essentially the world's de facto wire service.
