WEB DESK
A Dutch security researcher has claimed that 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.
The account was not protected by two-factor authentication, granting Gevers access to the president’s account.
After logging in, he emailed US-CERT, a division of Homeland Security’s cyber unit Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), to disclose the security lapse, which TechCrunch has seen. Gevers said the president’s Twitter password was changed shortly after.
It’s the second time Gevers has gained access to Trump’s Twitter account.
The first time was in 2016, when Gevers and two others extracted and cracked Trump’s password from the 2012 LinkedIn breach.