Trump’s campaign website hit with cryptocurrency scam

President Trump’s campaign website was hacked Tuesday afternoon in an obvious cryptocurrency scam, the New York Times reviews. “This site was seized,” the pretend FBI discover learn, earlier than claiming with out proof to have gained entry to Trump’s non-public communications containing proof of wrongdoing. Two cryptocurrency pockets addresses had been then listed, asking guests to ship funds and successfully vote on whether or not these paperwork needs to be launched.

In a assertion posted on Twitter, the Trump campaign’s communications director Tim Murtaugh confirmed the defacement. He stated “there was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site” and that the group was “working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack.” TechCrunch reviews that the website’s unique content material was restored, “within a few minutes.”

According to The New York Times, journalist Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler was among the many first to identify the hack and submit screenshots of it to Twitter.

The discover posted on the positioning in damaged English claimed to have proof that the Trump authorities was concerned within the origins of the coronavirus, and that the president has been concerned with “foreign actors manipulating the 2020 elections.”

It supplied two Monero pockets addresses for guests to ship cash to, permitting them to successfully vote on whether or not the hackers ought to launch the incriminating proof. One pockets was labeled with “Yes, share the data” and the opposite “No, do not share the data.” Monero cryptocurrency is especially troublesome observe, in line with each the NYT and TechCrunch.

The discover referred to a “deadline” after which the quantity of funds within the two addresses could be in contrast, however gives no data on when the deadline is. It additionally confirmed a PGP encryption key which TechCrunch notes corresponds to an e mail deal with at planet.gov, a website that doesn’t exist.

This shouldn’t be the one cryptocurrency scam to have affected considered one of contenders on this 12 months’s election. Back in July, Joe Biden’s Twitter account was among the many victims of a bitcoin scam by which quite a few high-profile accounts had been hacked.

There’s no proof that something aside from the website itself was affected by the hack, and it’s unclear who was behind it. However, it’s notable that it occurred only a week earlier than an election by which international interference has been such a priority.