Authorities have arrested a man who is allegedly part of The Chuckling Squad, a hacker group that in August compromised the Twitter account of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, according to law enforcement and criminal sources. The group also claimed responsibility for hacks of other celebrities, including actress Chloë Grace Moretz.
Owen Grech, the alleged member, was arrested around two weeks ago, one of the leaders of The Chuckling Squad, who goes by the handle Debug, told Motherboard.
"He was a member of Chuckling Squad but not anymore. He was an active member for us by providing celebs/public figure [phone] numbers and helped us hack them," Debug said. Debug said the group kicked Grech out in October.
"We applaud the efforts of all the law enforcement agencies involved in this arrest," the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, which manages the Regional Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT), told Motherboard in an email. "REACT continues to work with and assist our law enforcement partners in any way we can. We hope this arrest serves as a reminder to the public that people who engage in these crimes will be caught, arrested and prosecuted."
When Chuckling Squad hacked Dorsey's account, the group posted a series of bomb threats and racist messages, and retweeted anti-semitic material. The hack relied on a technique called SIM-swapping, where hackers, either in person at a store or on the phone, will trick a wireless provider like T-Mobile or Verizon into giving control of a phone number. From here, hackers can receive two-factor authentication SMS codes, or in the case of Dorsey, post tweets via Twitter's now-defunct text-to-tweet functionality.
In that hack, Grech obtained Dorsey's phone number, Debug said. The rest of the hack was completed by themselves and another Chuckling Squad leader known as Aqua, Debug said.
Do you know anything else about this arrest? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
Over the past year, law enforcement agencies have ramped up their arrests of SIM-swappers, as the attacks have been used to carry out SWATing threats, the theft of cryptocurrency, and the illegal hacking of accounts themselves. REACT, a task force of multiple police forces in California, has been particularly focused on SIM-swapping.
Debug claimed Grech was responsible for a number of other attacks, including one on Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Erin West. Debug provided a screenshot of a text message they say Owen sent to West, which included the hashtag "#FreeJoelOrtiz," a reference to a SIM-swapper that West convicted. Ortiz accepted a plea deal of 10 years in prison after stealing more than $5 million worth of cryptocurrency.
Owen's motivations, meanwhile, weren't necessarily financial.
"He would be weird," Debug said. "Swatting celebrities for a follow back."
A Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard in an email, "We have no comment."
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