President Trump’s campaign website is back online after it was partially hacked on Tuesday evening.
Around 7 p.m. EDT, hackers attempting to steal cryptocurrency from gullible individuals digitally commandeered the “About” section of Trump’s campaign website and posted an image that made it appear as if the FBI had seized the site.
“The world has had enough of the fake-news spreaded daily by president donald j trump,” read part of the message posted to the site, “it is time to allow the world to know truth.”
Two cryptocurrency addresses utilizing the ultra-private Monero blockchain were included with text that instructed people to send Monero if they wanted “full access to trump and relatives.”
Monero is one of the most valuable cryptocurrency blockchains in existence, and its focus on privacy, obfusucating transactions between individuals, marks a shift from hacks in the past that have relied on Bitcoin, which is a public ledger and lends itself to be more easily tracked.
Tim Murtaugh, the communications director of Trump’s campaign, released a statement Tuesday evening that said the campaign’s website was “defaced” and that the campaign already contacted law enforcement “to investigate the source of the attack.”
Murtaugh added that the website’s functionality had been restored and that no sensitive data had been exposed during the attack.
The hack took place one week before Election Day. Trump is facing off against former Vice President Joe Biden.
