The Netherlands claims that a hacker managed to guess Donald Trump’s Twitter password

The Hague – The Netherlands Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that a Dutch hacker accessed President Donald Trump’s Twitter when he discovered that his password was “Maga2020” and announce that he will not file charges against him in dealing with an “ethical hacker” who alerted US authorities to the situation.

The “hacker” Victor Gevers made public in late October that he had accessed Trump’s personal Twitter account after only seven intentions with different versions of the password, until he said with the correct, that it was “maga2020” ( abbreviation at least) of the slogan of his campaign, Make America Great Again).

In addition, Trump had the double-checking system disabled, so when trying to access, Gevers does not need to send a message on the president’s mobile phone or email to authorize access to the account, something that Dutch prosecutors confirm after an investigation by the cyber unit of the national police.

Although both Twitter and the White House have always denied that this had happened, the prosecution confirmed on Wednesday that Gevers finally accessed the account, but did not take advantage of the situation to tweet on Trump’s behalf, read his private messages, change the key or profile photo, possible options when accessing an account from Twitter.

Attempts to alert the president, his team at the White House, the campaign, and even members of his family about the security of his Twitter account fail, but days later the US secret services are contact Gevers to thank him for the notice.

Trump changed his key and turned on double-checking.

Although hacking is punishable in the Netherlands, the Prosecutor’s Office considers that Gevers had met criteria for not being charged: it is an ethical “hacker”, dedicated to “responsible disclosure”, and contacts the authorities low real number, warned them of the situation and advice on how to fix the vulnerability of Trump’s account.

This is not the first time Gevers, 44, has accessed the US president’s account. As early as October 2016, he and several friends came across Trump’s password in a database leaked by hackers.

Then, Trump had “youarefired” as the password.

Among other discoveries, he came across a Chinese database with personal information (phone, birth records, employer, ID number or nationality) and locations (with GPS coordinates of places visited) of 2.7 million Xinjang residents. , China’s largest province and home to Uighurs, evidencing that the Chinese government is monitoring this ethnic minority in the country.