Independence Day was meant to be a good day for GETTR as it planned to release its service to the public. However, a hacker managed to get there first and defaced a lot of popular profiles on the service, claiming that the attack was “easy.”
What Happened to GETTR On July 4, 2021?
As reported on Business Insider, GETTR was launched during Independence Day. GETTR is a social media platform with a pro-Trump focus after the ex-president ran afoul of issues on other websites.
However, it appears this new website has its own fair share of problems. In the wee hours of the morning after the launch, several high-ranking profiles had been successfully hacked.
Jason Miller, who helped create GETTR, fell victim to the attacks. However, he wasn’t the only one:
The accounts of Mike Pompeo, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Harlan Hill, Sean Parnell, and the pro-Trump broadcaster Newsmax were also hacked.
The hacker changed each victim’s profile to a simple message: “@JubaBaghdad was here :) , ^^free palestine^^.” Because the hacker left their calling card on each profile, Business Insider was able to get into contact with them and ask about how and why they did it.
As it turns out, @JubaBaghdad is a professional bug bounty hunter. Bug bounty hunters are ethical hackers who find exploits in a business’ code, then reports it in exchange for a financial payout.
However, @JubaBaghdad wasn’t hired by GETTR to hack their service. Instead, they claim they did it “just for fun” and stated that it took only 20 minutes of preparation to fully crack the service’s security.
GETTR learned its lesson with the Independence Day hack and patched out the issue that allowed @JubaBaghdad access to the accounts. However, he could still harvest user information, and proved it by telling Business Insider the info on a test account.
As such, it seems that GETTR’s launch was not as smooth as it had liked. We’ll have to see if it manages to step up its security game and protect its users better.
Get ‘Er Fixed, GETTR
While GETTR was likely hoping for a smooth launch on Independence Day, the reality was anything but. Let’s hope the website’s engineers can work faster than bored hackers.
The ex-president has had a rough time setting up a digital platform for his opinions and views. After many major social media platforms banned him off of their services, he has had to turn to supporter-grown websites to keep himself afloat online.
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