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Patrick Semansky / AP
Victor Gevers, a cybersecurity researcher, told Dutch prosecutors that he was looking for vulnerabilities in the accounts of American candidates before the November elections.
Six years ago, the Dutch hacker Victor Gevers connected to the Twitter account of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, guessing the password: “You are fired.”
Then he did it again. On October 16, Gevers, 44, made another accurate assumption, “wow2020!”, On his fifth try, according to Dutch prosecutors.
Piracy is a crime in the Netherlands. But on Thursday (NZT), Dutch officials said they would not press charges because Gevers had met the standard for “responsible disclosure”, showing how easy it could be to gain control of the US president.
“We believe that the hacker has actually penetrated Trump’s Twitter account, but has met the criteria that have been developed in case law to go free as an ethical hacker,” the prosecution said in a statement. guardian reported.
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Gevers was open about what he had done and said his goal was to show “vulnerabilities on the Internet”, the BBC reported. On October 22, Gevers shared screenshots, apparently from inside Trump’s account.
He also tweeted some advice, apparently aimed at the president of the United States, encouraging the use of two-factor authentication, which makes it difficult to hack a password.
Both the White House and Twitter have denied that Gevers had access to the account. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter in a statement said it “had not seen any evidence to support this claim, including the article published today in the Netherlands. We proactively implement account security measures for a designated group of Twitter accounts related to high-profile elections. in the United States. States, including federal branches of government. “
Gevers, a cybersecurity researcher, told Dutch prosecutors that he was looking for vulnerabilities in the accounts of American candidates before the November election when he breached Trump’s account.
“He later declared to the police that he had investigated the security of the password because there were great interests involved if this Twitter account could be taken so shortly before the presidential elections,” the prosecutor said, according to the newspaper. BBC.
