Imagine Mr. Bill Gates tweeting from his Twitter account,” Everyone is asking me to give back. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000. (Link)”

It did happen on July 15, 2020. Folks on Twitter were puzzled when many rich and famous people tweeted with similar tempting texts along with the link to deposit money. The tweet-requests about donations in the crypto-currency were published from the official accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barak Obama, Kim Kardashian, Uber, Apple, and many more. The common thing about the accounts was that all of them are extremely popular on the social media platform.

I witnessed it myself as I’m a regular on Twitter. It was reported later that in just four hours the Bitcoin wallet promoted in the tweets received over $100,000 through at least 300 transactions.

Hacked? Hell yeah!

I’m taking my series ‘Mysteries of 2020’ to another level with the hacking of some of the greatest Twitter accounts. The mystery, in this case, is solved and you need to check it out.

The tweet from Elon Musk’s account cited, “All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1000, I will send back $2000. Only doing this for 30 minutes. [the link]. Enjoy!”

Twitter reacted after more than an hour of the hacking incident, promised to investigate the issue and take steps to fix it. The affected accounts (around 130 of them) were locked and the controversial tweets were removed. Twitter said it was a “coordinated” attack targeting its employees “with access to internal systems and tools”.

Mastermind Behind the Great Twitter Hack

Now brace yourself for the identity of the mastermind behind the great Twitter hack. Graham Ivan Clark is a 17-year-old Florida boy who has just graduated from high school and is facing 30 felony charges for hacking Twitter accounts, posting on their behalf, and luring victims in the bitcoin scam.

Clark didn’t require sophisticated hacking tools to break into Twitter’s security. He just used the magic of his words. Clark convinced an IT employee at Twitter that he was a colleague and needed customer’s login credentials to access customer support. That’s how the story began.

Two others were arrested for aiding in the scheme by executing as brokers on the sale of compromised Twitter accounts: Mason Sheppard, 19, of the U.K., and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando.

What Graham Ivan Clark and aides did was certainly a horrible crime. In this world of social media, the actions are quicker on virtual platforms. The restlessness to move ahead of the others has reached its peak. We don’t think twice before clicking a link but in real life, it takes sufficient time to bargain for the everyday knick-knacks.

Now some expert advice:  I agree that Clark boy should be sentenced for the crime he did but after the completion of the punishment he may be allowed to serve for the country’s security system.