But the identity of Kirk, his motivation and whether he shared his access to Twitter with anyone else remain a mystery even to the people who worked with him. It is still unclear how much Kirk used his access to the accounts of people like Mr. Biden and Mr. Musk to gain more privileged information, like their private conversations on Twitter. They said they had not continued to work with Kirk once he began more high-profile attacks around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. “lol” did not confirm his real-world identity, but said he lived on the West Coast and was in his 20s. The user known as Kirk did not have much of a reputation in hacker circles before Wednesday.

Source: New York Times July 17, 2020 20:37 UTC