14 DAY TRIAL // The official Twitter account of Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, has been hijacked. Anonymous Ecuador hackers are apparently behind the attack.
Twitter users managed to capture screenshots of the messages posted by the hackers on the 1.45 million follower account before they were removed. The tweets pointed to Anonymous Ecuador’s website where official emails and documents intercepted by the hacktivists have been published.
The hackers’ messages also referenced Ecuador’s Minister of the Interior Jose Serrano and Rommy Vallejo, the secretary of National Intelligence.
The messages posted by the hackers were removed within 10 minutes. A few hours later, Correa issued a short statement on Twitter blaming the extreme right of certain foreign countries in complicity with his national “unscrupulous opponents” for the attack.
“Another example of what we face every day,” Correa wrote on Twitter after the attack.
The president says the account’s password has been changed to prevent further intrusions.
It’s uncertain how the hackers hijacked Correa’s account, but most such attacks rely on phishing. If they have access to official email accounts, they could have sent a legitimate-looking phishing email to the president.
Ecuador’s Interior Ministry and the country’s National Intelligence Secretariat have named the incident an “attack on internal security” and on the president’s privacy, AFP reports.
Hace algunas horas mi twitter fue hackeado, y aprovecharon para enviar falsos tw con las infamias de siempre. Demoré en aclararlo porque...
— Rafael Correa (@MashiRafael) March 28, 2014