A spokesman for former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Donald Trump Jr.’s account on X compromised after a series of unusual and random posts began.
“Don’s account has hacked,” Andrew Sorabin posted on X. Adding that a post claiming the former president’s death was “obviously not true.”
In addition to falsely announcing Trump Sr.’s death, the compromised account also claimed that Trump Jr. would run for president himself.
Within minutes, the post reshared over 1,000 times on X and viewed millions of times. Another post appeared to threaten the country of North Korea.
While a pinned post on the account’s profile insulted President Joe Biden by using a racist epithet. About half an hour after the posts appeared, they were removed.
The incident raises fresh questions about X’s role in securing user accounts.
Particularly those belonging to high-profile political figures as the platform prepares for the 2024 elections.
In August, X said it was staffing its security and election teams after massive layoffs last year that ultimately eliminated more than 80 percent of the company’s headcount.
Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was hacked.
According to owner Elon Musk it’s also unclear whether the compromise may have been the result of unauthorized access to Donald Trump Jr.’s private direct messages, or whether Trump Jr. may have enabled two-factor authentication on his account.
X is still under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over the company’s ability to adequately protect user privacy. And whether it violated commitments it made in 2011 to secure the platform.
The investigation began after a whistleblower disclosure by the company’s former security chief, Peter “Midge” Zatko. And The Washington Post last year, about widespread and unaddressed security vulnerabilities.
This is not the first time high-profile accounts have hijacked on the platform.
In 2020, for example, hackers took control of the accounts of former President Barack Obama, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and others, including Biden and Musk, by posing as Twitter IT support.
At the time, Twitter admitted that hackers had downloaded account data of Donald Trump Jr. that likely included private messages.