„I am not saying I did it. But what if I was the one to post the tweet?“
According to a Dutch hacker who hacked the president’s account once before, the answer is yes. A Dutch security researcher says he accessed President Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter account last week by guessing his password: “maga2020!”. Victor Gevers, a security researcher at the GDI Foundation and chair of the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure, which finds and reports security vulnerabilities, told TechCrunch he guessed the president’s account password and was successful on the fifth attempt. Gevers was one of several hackers who previously hacked into Trump’s account in 2016. This time around he provided screenshots of the back end of Trump’s Twitter account and claimed he’d even been contacted and thanked by the Secret Service the following day for alerting them. But today Twitter has contradicted his claim, saying it has seen “no evidence” to corroborate it: In a statement, Twitter spokesperson Ian Plunkett said: “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 said last month that it would tighten the security on the accounts of political candidates and government accounts, including encouraging but not mandating the use of two-factor authentication.
