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Twitter Security

Dutch Hacker Says He Logged Into President Trump's Twitter Account (volkskrant.nl) 99

An anonymous reader shares a report: The researcher, Victor Gevers, had access to Trump's personal messages, could post tweets in his name and change his profile. Gevers took screenshots when he had access to Trump's account. These screenshots were shared with de Volkskrant by the monthly opinion magazine Vrij Nederland. Dutch security experts find Gevers' claim credible. The Dutchman alerted Trump and American government services to the security leak. After a few days, he was contacted by the American Secret Service in the Netherlands. This agency is also responsible for the security of the American President and took the report seriously, as evidenced by correspondence seen by de Volkskrant. Meanwhile Trump's account has been made more secure. This is not the first time that Dutch hackers succeeded in taking over Donald Trump's Twitter account. The first time was four years ago, just before the 2016 elections, when three hackers jointly managed to retrieve Trump's password and access his account. That someone has now succeeded again, is remarkable. During the previous presidential elections Russian hackers attempted to influence the elections on a large scale. Subsequently, social media have taken various steps to prevent manipulation. The password was "maga2020!"
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Dutch Hacker Says He Logged Into President Trump's Twitter Account

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  • by newslash.formatblows ( 2011678 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @10:45AM (#60635734)
    ...Trump orders Air Force to find and bomb Dutchland.
  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @10:51AM (#60635766)
    He may already be planning a third term.
    • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:08AM (#60635876) Homepage Journal
      Well, to be fair...

      Biden's passord is yelling down the hall :

      "Hon, will you log me in again?"

      • by Anonymous Coward

        What's being fair about saying something that's not true?

      • You mean we might have a President who goes through the channels appropriate for their office and station, rather than tapping out a quick retort and smashing the Send button on Twitter? I don't see the problem here...

      • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @12:24PM (#60636338)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Well, to be fair...

        Biden's passord is yelling down the hall :

        "Hon, will you log me in again?"

        Heh. They're both senior citizens, and I think most if not all of us have seniors we care about in our lives.
        It's just politics and fun and games, fair play, but they both are... the next president will be, and so there isn't anything separating a pot shot at a public figure from making fun of the elderly. I supposed all elderly politicians as a whole might be fair game in some way though...

        Not that it's really any better to make fun of Trump's weight, hair, shaking, etc. or Biden's stutter or other condi

      • Best password ever! Although, a two factor authentication would be required, such as him actually walking down the hall to give her a kiss.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      I believe the meme ended in Trump over 9000.

    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Not entirely sure Trump will survive his second term. Given it's one of the most lethal jobs in the world (a bit less than 20% chance of dying by assassination or disease), and he's old and not exactly in top physical shape, well...
      2024 hopefully will be people that learned with Trump that americans put being employed and not starving over literally everything else, and will be a "we will give you jobs with X" versus "we will give you jobs with Y".

    • Well, "third term" in the sense of the third consecutive four-year period of rule by a member of the Trump family. It's more urgent that the principle of hereditary presidency be confirmed once this silly mucking around with "elections" is over. Everyone knows that any right-minded american patriot would vote for Trump, therefore anyone who doesn't vote for Trump is either not in their right mind (disqualified from voting), not American (disqualified from voting), or not a patriot (disqualified from voting)
  • His luggage (Score:5, Informative)

    by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:00AM (#60635824)
    The dude who's campaign slogan is MAGA, and is running for election in 2020... has a password of maga2020!...
    Why the fuck isn't someone in his administration policing grandpa's internet usage? He clearly has the online sense of a nursing home resident. Ridiculous.

    Hail skroob.
    • Do we really believe that's his password, though? I have to think that attempts to break into his twitter would be continuous. Nobody malicious guessed it before now? That seems unlikely if it's such a simple password.

      • I agree with your points.
        But read the article:
        The claim is credible. [volkskrant.nl] These people don't seem to be political, didn't dump everything they found to smear a campaign, provided proof, etc.
        He finds it equally humorous that he just stumbled onto it.
        He was mostly shocked that Twitter didn't block him somehow after 4 failed attempts.
  • by ameline ( 771895 ) <ian...ameline@@@gmail...com> on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:07AM (#60635856) Homepage Journal

    Is probably Trump2020, TrumpJr2024, or Ivanka2024 :-)

    • by infolation ( 840436 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:59AM (#60636240)
      It's going to be updated to 'Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV'.

      He'll **NEVER** forget that one!
      • It's going to be updated to 'Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV'.
        He'll **NEVER** forget that one!

        As long as they're still right in front of him, like I'm guessing they were when he made that up during the interview. I'm just thankful he can still differentiate those four things. Feel sorry for "person" though. :-)

      • by shanen ( 462549 )

        A good password should go deeper into his psyche. How about "I-hate-women-reporters"?

        Or maybe a new campaign motto? How about "Come-let-us-hate-together"?

        (Did Slashdot ever have a Golden Age of "Come, let us reason together"? Maybe that's just my deceptive memory?)

      • by tragedy ( 27079 )

        It's going to be updated to 'Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV'.

        He'll **NEVER** forget that one!

        Except that he couldn't actually get the order right on the multiple times he repeated it for the cameras. So he might have trouble with it as a password. Also, I'm pretty sure twitter doesn't allow spaces in passwords.

    • Nah. It's StahlSucks
  • Dammit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:07AM (#60635860)

    So 'StableGenius' no longer the password?

  • no two factor authentication? Really? For the primary form of communication he uses to communicate to the masses? I've got two factor authentication to check my email, and I'm nobody.
  • by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:14AM (#60635904)

    1 2 3 4 5

    That's hardly Dutch hacking genius to crack that...

    • by Nkwe ( 604125 )

      1 2 3 4 5

      That's hardly Dutch hacking genius to crack that...

      It's easy to remember because it's also the password to his luggage and the master nuclear launch code.

      • That nuclear lunch code history is way too scary...

      • The launch codes were all zeros in the silos, presumably, to minimize data entry errors during a critical time.

        I hope they actually fixed this once that was publicly exposed.

        • The "launch codes" were removed. They were added at the demand of someone high up in the government (I forget who) but didn't really add any security.

          The security is physical - the keys, have to turn simultaneously, far apart that no one person can turn both, multiple bunkers have to also order the launch at the same time, and so on.

          They literally have access to the nuclear weapon. A "launch code" isn't going to prevent them from doing something bad with it.

          • This is incorrect. For ICBM's there is a 2 key system but the PAL must also be enabled with launch codes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
          • by tragedy ( 27079 )

            The security is physical - the keys, have to turn simultaneously, far apart that no one person can turn both

            Unless they have some string and something solid to slot over the keys and tie the string to. maybe a section of ruler with a slot cut in it, or a pen or something. Or any of dozens of other methods. Seriously, one person turning two physically distanced keys at the same time isn't exactly rocket science. I'll grant that it's just one safety interlock out of several. Kind of like the, I think six safety interlocks, that prevented that nuclear weapon they accidentally dropped on North Carolina from going off

  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:16AM (#60635922)

    He could have faced the president's entire public presence!

    You know: Faced. The opposite of defaced.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Good question. Maybe he used a well hidden VPN exit node that was close enough to geographic location of the president and successfully emulated a web browser with relevant forged cookies?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You have to enable 2FA first. It's optional on Twitter. And unlike most other places - you can turn it off again after having turned it on.
  • by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @11:24AM (#60636002) Homepage
    Twitter has said that they have no evidence to confirm the claim https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/1319304659706605568 [twitter.com] and Twitter would at a minimum have access to IP addresses of anyone who logged on (but they might not want to say that it did happen for their own reasons). Without more evidence, I'm reserving judgment if this is true, even if it would be really hilarious if true.
    • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      Twitter has said that they have no evidence to confirm the claim https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/1319304659706605568 [twitter.com] and Twitter would at a minimum have access to IP addresses of anyone who logged on (but they might not want to say that it did happen for their own reasons). Without more evidence, I'm reserving judgment if this is true, even if it would be really hilarious if true.

      I can't say one way or another is this hacker's claims are true, but do you really think that Twitter would publically admit that the twitter account of Trump was compromised?

      • > I can't say one way or another is this hacker's claims are true, but do you really think that Twitter would publically admit that the twitter account of Trump was compromised?

        Twitter doesn't mind helping Trump look bad. In fact they go out of their way to say he's an idiot or wrong or whatever. Not that I necessarily disagree.

      • ... but do you really think that Twitter would publically admit that the twitter account of Trump was compromised?

        If it were compromised as a result of Twitter being hacked, or a rogue employee or some other internal Twitter failure ... no.

        If it were comprised as a result of really stupid end user error, say a guessable password like "maga2020", combined with no two factor authentication ... yes, as all the blame is on Trump's carelessness.

    • ... but they might not want to say that it did happen for their own reasons ....

      Yeah, Twitter is notorious for its efforts to protect Trump and his reputation. ;-)

    • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

      I find it impossible to believe the story because there's no way Trump's account doesn't have additional levels of security on it, simply because it's Trump's account. There are probably IP range restrictions and VPN requirements that were set up between the White House staff and Twitter. Even if we assume Trump doesn't use 2FA, it seems highly unlikely that Trump's account just allows random logins. It's well known he mostly tweets from his phone, he doesn't need to constantly log back in, there's no reaso

    • by longk ( 2637033 )

      Obvious fake. He made te same unproven claim in 2016. All he needed to do was DM his own name from Trump's account to @nytimes and he would be golden.

    • This is fake news... LOL
    • ... send a direct message from there to your Twitter account.

      This will leave tracks that Twitter can confirm, and will do no other damage.

    • Twitter has said that they have no evidence to confirm the claim https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/1319304659706605568 [twitter.com] and Twitter would at a minimum have access to IP addresses of anyone who logged on (but they might not want to say that it did happen for their own reasons). Without more evidence, I'm reserving judgment if this is true, even if it would be really hilarious if true.

      Yeah, reading a couple of articles and it sounds really fishy.

      a) 2-Factor authentication is a bit of a no-brainier for a high profile account.... ok, bad example

      b) Twitter would have the IP of anyone who logged into the account, and they don't have any reason to lie about it.

      c) This is the first I heard of the supposed 2016 hack.

      d) In both cases the "proof" was a screenshot, which is ridiculously easy for someone to fake. If you did it in 2016 and no one believed you because you had no proof wouldn't you g

  • People couldn't understand all the nonsensical ramblings coming from that account. There were words, yes, but the sentences seemed to be written by a four year old.

    Now we know why. It was this Dutch guy trying to write his own language.

    • So "covfefe" is actually a Dutch word? I mean, given the number and type of consonants that wouldn't surprise me...
      • Well, if I use the autodetect of Google translate on 'covfefe' it suggests Czech, but offers no translation to any language.
        The audio of the alleged pronunciation in Czech is confusing, at least to my ear...

  • The new more secure password is "Maga2020!" because everybody knows you need to have a capital letter in there.

  • We all know this is fake news, because nobody gets hacked.

    To get hacked you need somebody with 197 IQ and he needs about 15 percent of your password

  • I've ever heard in my life! That's the kinda thing an idiot would have on his luggage.
  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Thursday October 22, 2020 @02:00PM (#60636794) Homepage

    The guy could post whatever he wants. No matter how crazy it is, nobody would even notice a change!

  • That's actually very interesting. I always thought there was a special "famous people Twitter" and other similar services that had many-factor auth, huge password complexity restrictions, etc. I guess not. What's amazing is that this guy could have easily posted something crazy that moved the financial markets or set off a panic.

    Anyone who knows -- how do social media giants typically handle famous people accounts? I imagine that almost all of them are controlled by a social media manager of some kind. Are

  • First you let a "hacker" gain access.

    Then you let the "hacker" post terrible things against the Terms of Service.

    The media has a field day with the posted stuff.

    Twitter locks the account until after the election.

    Twitter restores access to Trump.
  • You had an opportunity to make meaningful posts on Trump's account and DIDN'T?!

    Shame on you!

    What is you posted something along the lines of:
    "OK. I am tired of this job now. I am too close to getting caught. So, no need to vote for me again. It was fun while it lasted!
    I just want to go shoot someone on 5th Ave, then go have a berger and a covfefe, and another hooker who's pussy I can grab."

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