14 DAY TRIAL // In a long overdue move, Twitter has returned the @N handle back to its owner, Naoki Hiroshima, nearly a month after a hacker managed to steal it.
“Order has been restored,” Hiroshima happily posted on his account as Twitter did the right thing. He stated that this was a happy ending not only for himself, but for everyone else.
Back in January, the owner of @N went through an entire ordeal that he recounted for everyone to read. Hiroshima knew that his account username was desired by others, especially since he was even made a hefty offer of $50,000 (€36,000) for it.
He never expected things to go this far, however. The hacker attempted to get control of this Twitter account by resetting its password, eventually ending up by extorting Hiroshima into handing over the account on his own accord.
Initially, the hacker wanted to trick Twitter into resetting the password, trying to get the company to send the reset link to his email address, claiming he wasn’t receiving the information on his e-mail and asking for a manual send.
Twitter demanded for more information, which eventually pushed the hacker to back down. Since attacking the Twitter account directly didn’t exactly work, the hacker found another way in.
Since Hiroshima is the creator of Cocoyon and an Echofon developer, he has a few sites he handles via GoDaddy after obtaining information from PayPal.
According to the hacker himself, he called PayPal and used a few tricks to obtain the last four numbers of Hiroshima’s credit card by acting as an employee.
Once he found out the numbers, he called up GoDaddy and told them he’d lost his card, but he remembers the last four digits. Once this happened, the hacker took the matter a step further – extortion.
“I’ve seen you spoke with an accomplice of mine, I would just like to inform you that you were correct, @N was the target. It appears extremely inactive, I would also like to inform you that your GoDaddy domains are in my possession, one fake purchase and they can be repossessed by godaddy and never seen again,” the hackers taunted Hiroshima via an email.
In order for the hacker to leave Hiroshima’s websites alone, he was requesting access to @N, while also offering some help to secure his data.
The entire ordeal has made it obvious just how easy it is for unverified individuals to obtain information about their targets. Eventually, GoDaddy and PayPal both issued statements regarding the incident and GoDaddy ended up increasing the security measures. The company now requires 8 card digits, and accounts get locked after three attempts.
Order has been restored.
— Naoki Hiroshima (@N) February 25, 2014