FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Trump’s Cybersecurity Advisor Rudy Giuliani Thinks His Twitter Was Hacked Because Someone Took Advantage of His Typo

A missed space created a hyperlink in Giuliani’s tweet about the G-20 summit, which someone quickly took advantage of.
Rudy Giuliani
Image: Wikipedia

Rudy Giuliani, who was named President Trump’s cybersecurity advisor last year, demonstrated on Tuesday that he does not understand how Twitter works…or hyperlinks…or domain registration.

Giuliani tweeted that Twitter had allowed someone to “invade” a tweet he sent on November 30, because that tweet linked to a website with the words “Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country.”

Tweet from Rudy Giuliani

However, the reason the text linked to the site was due to a typo in Giuliani’s original tweet. He forgot to include a space after the period of “G-20,” and the next word “in” happens to be the top-level domain for India. Shortly after, an anonymous (and quick-thinking) user bought the domain G-20.in, according to WhoIs records.

Advertisement
A screengrab of WhoIs data

This individual then launched the site with the anti-Trump message:

Screengrab from the website G-20.in

But rather than recognizing this rather clever own, Giuliani has instead blamed Twitter, claiming the site is run by “committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers.”

Just to reiterate, this is from the man who led the cybersecurity working group for Trump’s transition team and is, the last we heard, the president’s cybersecurity advisor (as well as his personal lawyer). Yet he seems to believe his tweet’s link is actually the result of some kind of Twitter-facilitated hack, rather than a typo.