What you need to know
- A number of popular subreddits have been vandalized with Trump 2020 messaging.
- Reddit says an investigation is underway "related to a series of vandalized communities."
- It appears compromised moderators may be the source of the attacks.
Reddit is investigating a number of hacked subreddits that were vandalized with pro-Trump messaging.
As reported by The Verge:
A number of subreddits were taken over and vandalized on Friday, possibly as part of a coordinated campaign. Hackers reportedly posted messages or changed a subreddit's design in support of President Donald Trump.
A spokesperson from Reddit told The Verge that it was investigating "a series of vandalized communities." According to the statement, Reddit believes the source of the attacks "were compromised moderator accounts" and is "working to lock down those accounts and restore impacted communities."
As the report notes, the full scale of the attack is unclear, but a list on the Subreddit drama page lists more than 50 accounts including:
- /r/49ers
- /r/Avengers
- /r/bostonceltics
- /r/Dallas
- /r/Disneyland
- /r/EDM
- /r/podcasts
- /r/rupaulsdragrace
- /r/space
According to the post, redtaboo has verified that "none of the accounts that were compromised had 2fa enabled at the time". In a Reddit moderator post the company said:
Once we've cleared everything up, we'll be messaging all affected subreddits letting them know they were affected but the situation is now resolved. To be clear, many mods will get access back to their account BEFORE we send this message, but we'll make sure to close the loop with the message on the other side of this. And yes, we'll be doing a post-mortem of some sort in r/redditsecurity, though that will be a bit further out.
Reddit says it has since started messaging affected communities.
