Hacker Claims He Breached Trump’s Twitter Account By Guessing Super-Obvious Password, Produces Screenshot As ‘Proof’
Photo by Olivier Douliery/Getty Images.
Twitter and the White House are disputing the claims of a Dutch security researcher who says he successfully breached President Donald Trump’s account on the social media platform.
According to a report from Dutch news outlet De Volkskrant, Victor Gevers — whio chairs the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure — previously logged into Trump’s account before back in 2016, along with two others. According to the story — which has been corroborated by other Dutch news sources — Gevers was able to once again access Trump’s account after successfully guessing the password last week: “maga2020!”
“I expected to be blocked after four failed attempts. Or at least would be asked to provide additional information,” Gevers said.
As proof of his alleged exploits, Gevers took a screenshot of himself inside of Trump’s settings window.
After that, Gevers said he sent his screenshots to Trump’s email, his campaign, the White House, and multiple American law enforcement agencies. He also provided a notification of his actions plus instructions for how to make Trump’s account more secure.
De Volkskrant says that the day after Gevers gained access, he saw Trump’s account had activated its two-step verification process. Later, Gevers was contacted by Secret Service, who reportedly thanked them for bringing the matter to their attention.
Gevers had this reflection about the experience:
Why is it possible for someone from a different time zone to log into such an important account? Why doesn’t Twitter demand better passwords? If I can access his account, then foreign nations can do so as well, right? Why aren’t the persons who are supposed to protect the President informed when someone reports that his account is unsafe?
Following the story’s initial release, Twitter issued this denial on the report:
We’ve seen no evidence to corroborate this claim, including from the article published in the Netherlands today. We proactively implemented account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the United States, including federal branches of government.
Twitter spokesperson:
"We've seen no evidence to corroborate this claim, including from the article published in the Netherlands today. We proactively implemented account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the USA." https://t.co/BhJdC0tyqn
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) October 22, 2020
White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere has also disputed the report, saying “This is absolutely not true but we don’t comment on security procedures around the President’s social media accounts.”
