Four people who claim to be the masterminds of the Twitter attack on a number of public figures including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk last week have spoken to the New York Times about how they hatched their plan to get people to send money to a fake Bitcoin account. The hackers, who use the handles “yoo bro,” “Kirk,” “lol,” and “ever so anxious,” spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Times even as police search for their true identities. The hacker using the handle “Kirk,” who is well known in the underground hacking community, claimed to work at Twitter and showed proof that he or she could take over any Twitter account, including those of public figures.
The foursome communicated on messaging platform Discord, favored by hackers and gamers, to come up with the plan to entice people to send money that would be “matched” by the public figures and celebrities targeted. The Times said their interviews show that the attack was not the work of one entity like Russia or even a sophisticated group of hackers. “Instead, it was done by a group of young people—one of whom says he lives at home with his mother—who got to know one another because of their obsession with owning early or unusual screen names, particularly one letter or number.”