Cryptocurrency-loving hackers partially defaced the Trump campaign website for about 30 minutes today. The hackers complained of the president’s tendency to spread fake news and asked visitors to send cryptocurrency to one of two anonymous addresses.
The site appeared to mock the way the FBI seizes illegal sites online, replacing the donaldjtrump.com/about with a blank page with images of U.S. Department of Justice seals and stark text claiming “this site was seized. The world has had enough of the fake-news spreaded daily by president donald j trump.”
“It is time to allow the world to know truth,” the hackers continued.
Further, the hackers claimed that they had evidence “proving [the president’s] involvement and cooperation with foreign actors,” lines parroting the common belief that Russian assets are intervening in the current election.
Journalist Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler spotted the hack at 7 p.m. EST on Oct. 27.
The defaced website remained live for about half an hour. The hackers asked readers to send Monero cryptocurrency to one of two addresses in order to vote on whether or not the hackers should release the president’s data. The money would then be sent to “the people.”
“There was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site. The website has been restored,” said Trump spokesperson Tim Murtaugh.
Ironically, Trump claimed last week that “nobody gets hacked.”
“To get hacked you need somebody with 197 I.Q. and he needs about 15% of your password,” he said to a crowd in Arizona. Sadly, we were unable to identify let alone test the IQs of these hackers at press time.
Correction 10/28/2020 9:19 a.m. ET: An earlier version of this post misstated which part of the campaign site was defaced by hackers. Only the “About” page was briefly altered.
DISCUSSION
Yeah, but apparently what you really need is an I.Q. that’s about your shoe size to make that statement.
...and Barron is really good with the cyber.