Scammers Attack Trump Campaign Website

Unknown perpetrators attacked and defaced Donal Trump’s presidential election campaign website on Tuesday. The attackers briefly took over control of DonaldJTrump.com and defaced the "Events" and "About" pages. The affected pages displayed a message from the cybercriminals for approximately 30 minutes after which the whole website was temporarily shut down. In another 30 minutes the website was back up and running.

The hackers claimed they had "seized" the website and they had gained access to multiple devices and "strictly classified information." The perpetrators’ message went on to say that the alleged information completely discredited President Trump. Supposedly, they had evidence that the president was involved and cooperating with foreign actors to manipulate the upcoming election. The cybercriminals also claimed they had gained access to information proving the "trump-gov is involved in the origin of the corona virus.

The attackers' message

This Week In Malware Episode 28 Part 2: 3 Ways Cybercriminals Try to Steal Your 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Vote

Ultimately, the message urged the public to "vote" on whether or not the hackers should release whatever information they had their hands on. The message included two links to Monero wallets. Readers were urged to "vote" by donating to one wallet or the other where the two corresponded to "Yes, share the data" and "No, do not share the data." The attackers stated they would share the results of the vote after the deadline, although there was no deadline indicated anywhere in their message. While themes may vary, there are countless online scams trying to make people send cryptocurrency to anonymous wallets.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, has confirmed the attack and further stated they were working with authorities to investigate the attackers. Mr. Murtaugh denied any claims that any sensitive information had been accessed by the hackers as no such data was stored on the website.