Daily US Times: Dutch police have questioned a security researcher who claimed he successfully logged into the US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account by guessing his password.
Well-known cyber investigator Victor Gevers said last month he had gained access to Donald Trump’s Twitter account with the password ‘MAGA2020!’.
The White House denied the claim Twitter said it had no evidence of a hack, but Mr Gevers has now revealed more information supporting his claims.
As part of the police interrogation, for the first time, Mr Gevers revealed that he had substantially more evidence of the “hack” than he had previously released.
The cyber investigator did not reveal exactly what information he had, but by logging in to somebody’s Twitter account an attacker would in theory be able to:
- see tweets that the user had privately bookmarked
- see and send private messages
- access information such as how many people the account holder had blocked
They would even be able to download an archive of all the user’s data, including photos and messages.
“We are currently investigating whether something criminal has happened,” a spokesman for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service confirmed to De Volkskrant newspaper.
The spokesman said their inquiry was not based on a US request for legal assistance, rather an “independent Dutch investigation”.
The police told the BBC that Mr Gevers was not a suspect yet and he had been questioned as a witness by the High Tech Crime Team.
Police must first prove that the hack actually happened. If prosecutors consider Mr Gevers’ acts to be outside the realm of cyber-security research and illegal, he could face up to four years in prison.
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