Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:52 pm
For the entire campaign cycle, Donald Trump told Americans that Hillary Clinton’s email use was irresponsible because, as he repeatedly claimed, it made her a prime target for bad actors to hack into her account and put America’s national security at risk.
But it’s Trump who is likely to face such cyber breaches due to his reckless use of Twitter, says one hacker, according to CNN, who hacked into 500 ISIS accounts and says the new president’s accounting settings are setting making hackers’ jobs easy.
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According to a man who identifies himself online as WauchulaGhost, the president, vice president, and first lady are more vulnerable to hackers because of a basic Twitter security setting they’re not using.
On Monday night, WauchulaGhost made it more public, tweeting the emails associated with the accounts and the message: “Change your emails & Fix Settings.”
In June, WauchulaGhost made headlines by hacking into pro-ISIS accounts and replacing content with images of porn and gay pride messages. He says he has no interest in hacking the president, but that Trump’s security settings may leave him vulnerable to other hackers.
According to WauchulaGhost, @POTUS, @FLOTUS and @VP are more vulnerable because they haven’t selected a basic security feature on Twitter that requires you to provide a phone number or email address to reset your password.
The hacker noted that Trump’s current settings allow “anyone to click on ‘forgot password'” and type in his username, which will then give the user a “partially redacted email address to which it will send a password recovery link.”
At that point, the hacker claims, it’s pretty easy for someone to fill in the blanks and guess the email address, which is the first step to hacking into an account.
Now that Trump is President of the United States, such a breach would have major worldwide consequences.
As former State Department Senior Advisor Chris Bronk said, “These are accounts that can affect the national security of the United States at this point or the bottom line of the Dow Jones.”
Trump is no longer just a reality TV host. He’s the commander-in-chief. If he wants to continue spewing baseless conspiracy theories and throwing temper tantrums on Twitter, he should at least ensure that the account is secure.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
