Washington
CNN
—
A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump revealed today that Donald Trump Jr.’s account on X – the platform previously known as Twitter – had been hacked and began posting a series of unusual and erratic messages.
“Don’s account has been compromised,” stated Andrew Surabian in a post on X, further emphasizing that the claim about the former president’s death was false.
Alongside the false announcement about the senior Trump’s demise, the hacked account also indicated that Trump Jr. would be running for president himself. Within minutes, the post had gone viral on X, garnering over 1,000 shares and hundreds of thousands of views.
Additionally, another post on the compromised account seemed to make a threatening remark directed towards North Korea, while a pinned post insulted President Joe Biden through the use of a racist slur.
Approximately thirty minutes later, the contentious posts were removed. X did not provide a comment in response to CNN’s request.
This incident raises concerns regarding X’s ability to safeguard user accounts, particularly those belonging to prominent political figures, as the platform prepares for the upcoming 2024 elections. In August, X announced that it was strengthening its safety and election teams after experiencing significant layoffs in the previous year, resulting in an 80% reduction in staff, according to owner Elon Musk.
It remains uncertain whether this security breach led to unauthorized access to Trump Jr.’s private direct messages, or if Trump Jr. had enabled two-factor authentication for his account.
The Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating X over concerns about its ability to adequately protect user privacy and whether the platform may have violated its binding commitments made in 2011 to ensure the security of the site. The investigation was initiated after Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the former security chief of the company, filed a whistleblower disclosure that revealed widespread and unaddressed security vulnerabilities. This disclosure was first reported by CNN and The Washington Post last year.
This is not the first instance of high-profile accounts being compromised on the platform. In 2020, hackers took control of accounts belonging to former President Barack Obama, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and others, including Biden and Musk, by impersonating Twitter’s IT support. During that incident, Twitter acknowledged that the hackers had obtained account data that may have included private messages.
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