Donald Trump Jr.’s account on X (previously Twitter) was hacked on Wednesday morning. The account printed a submit that falsely claimed that his father, former president Donald Trump, had handed away.
“I’m unhappy to announce, my father Donald Trump has handed away,” the submit learn. “I will probably be working for president in 2024.” Andrew Surabian, a spokesperson for Trump, stated in a submit on X that the declare was false and that Trump Jr.’s account had been hacked.
The account additionally posted a string of different unusual posts, together with one saying, “This simply in: North Korea is about to get smoked,” whereas one other stated, “After I grow to be president I’m going to burn the SEC,” referring to the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee.
The posts remained on the platform for round half-hour earlier than they have been eliminated. It’s presently unknown if X eliminated the submit, or if Trump Jr.’s crew regained entry to the account and eliminated them.
information.killnetswitch couldn’t discover a web page on X about security and privateness for high-profile accounts. The hyperlink to the social media large’s security and security assist web page for compromised accounts additionally now not exists, and as an alternative tells customers “sorry, this web page doesn’t exist.”
X didn’t reply instantly to information.killnetswitch’s request for remark. The social media large’s press electronic mail despatched an automatic message that reads: “Busy now, please verify again later.”
The hijacking of Trump Jr.’s account is likely one of the extra excessive profile security incidents since Elon Musk took the reins of the corporate in October 2022. Earlier this 12 months, the corporate broke its silence over an alleged data breach that uncovered the contact info of tens of millions of customers in December 2022. Twitter stated that after conducting a “thorough investigation,” it discovered “no proof” that the information bought on-line was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter’s techniques.
It’s price noting that security on the platform was a problem even earlier than Musk took over. Immediately’s incident comes three years after numerous high-profile Twitter accounts, together with these belonging to Apple, Musk and Joe Biden, have been hacked on by attackers to unfold a cryptocurrency rip-off.
Former president Trump’s then-Twitter account was hacked in 2020 by a security researcher who guessed Trump’s password. Dutch officers, who confirmed the incident months later, declined to prosecute the researcher for appearing in good-faith.
