Alleged Obama Hacker Arrested in France

French hacker Francois Courteix allegedly targeted the Twitter accounts of U.S. President Barack Obama and other celebrities, just to show the rest of the world it was possible to do so. He says he had not intended to cause any harm.

[Francois Courteix, Suspected Hacker]:

„I just wanted to show that nobody is safe on the internet, whether they are big companies or just individual users.“

The young man, also known as “Hacker Croll”, is from a small town in central France. He still lives at home with his parents and is described by his mother as ‚introverted’.

He had gained access to confidential information such as the email addresses and phone numbers of various famous people.

[Francois Courteix, Suspected Hacker]:

„I was able to look at information on certain celebrities‘ accounts when I was on the administrators‘ control panel. For example, the IP address, phone numbers, email addresses…”

On Tuesday, French police showed up at the Courteix residence, accompanied by American FBI agents.

[Christine Courteix, Mother of Suspected Hacker]:

„On Tuesday, we were woken up at six in the morning. They knocked, they rang the bell, I thought it was one of my daughters coming home late, because the door was locked. They said ‚Open up, it’s the police‘, and we all ran downstairs and there were loads of men dressed in black and in dark clothing, that startled us a bit. And there were four FBI agents from America, but they were really nice. They were very open and willing to listen to Francois.“

French police said earlier they had received a tipoff in July last year that someone was trying to gain control of Twitter by acquiring the passwords of senior administrators that would have allowed him to gain access to users‘ accounts.

Police searched the young man’s bedroom and took some evidence away.

Courteix will now have to face French justice. If convicted, he could face two years in jail and thousands of dollars in fines.

Foto: NTDTV