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Purported hacker claims they defaced Trump's campaign website to protest Joe Biden's stance on Turkey

Former President Donald Trump's campaign website was hacked for several hours on Monday, October 18, 2021.
Screenshot
  • A subdomain of former President Donald Trump's website appeared to be hacked Monday.
  • The website remained defaced as of Monday evening.
  • Hackers using the same name defaced a Biden campaign website in 2020.

Hackers appeared to deface a portion of former President Donald Trump's campaign website on Monday, replacing it was an Islamic message and video featuring Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

In November 2020, hackers using the same name defaced a campaign website for President Joe Biden, using it to promote "Turkish nationalist themes," as detailed in a report from the US National Intelligence Council.

Monday's hack included links to Facebook and Instagram accounts for the purported hackers, who identify as "RootAyyildiz."

A person claiming to be the hacker told Insider, in a Facebook message, that they carried out Monday's attack because they had "hacked Joe Biden before and now he is Trump," asserting that the current US president is "anti-Turkey and anti-Islam." They claimed to be a supporter of Erdogan but not an agent of the Turkish government.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment on whether it intends to remove the accounts.

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