New York Times: Hacking Twitter is the work of a group of ‘gamers’

The paper said it interviewed four people involved in the hack, who shared logs and screenshots of what happened.

The hackers involved in the recent hack of well-known Twitter accounts were young friends with no ties to organized crime, The New York Times reported on Friday (July 17, 2020).

According to the newspaper, both Twitter and federal police are investigating the attack, which began with a message from the hacker (hacker) on the Discord platform, a chat service popular among gamers. The paper said it had interviewed four people involved in the hack and shared logs and screenshots of what happened.

“The interview shows that the attack was not carried out by a country such as Russia, nor by a group of sophisticated hackers,” The New York Times said.

“Instead, it was made by a group of young people, one of whom said he and his mother lived at home because they were obsessed with using unusual names on the web, especially letters or numbers like @ and @6” . Meanwhile, Twitter said at the time that it appeared to be a “coordinated attack by individuals who successfully targeted some of our employees who had access to internal systems and tools.”

Blockchain.com, a website that monitors cryptocurrency transactions, said more than $100,000 worth of bitcoin was remitted during the Twitter attack. Young hackers interviewed by The New York Times said a mysterious user named Kirk started the scheme with a message and was someone with access to the Twitter account.

The paper said it interviewed four people involved in the hack, who shared logs and screenshots of what happened.