Massive Reddit hack litters site with bizarre pro-Trump content

One of the largest social media websites in the world was hacked, and the hackers appear (on the surface) to be huge Trump fans.

Reddit, which had over 430 million users as of the end of 2019, saw one of its worst security breaches earlier today. Scores of subreddits, some of which boast over one million members, were hacked and muttered with content praising U.S. President Donald Trump.

Some of the hacked subreddits (full list in the press release section below, via Reddit) include popular communities for numerous National Football League (NFL) teams, National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, r/Space, popular U.S. television shows, and more. The messages posted were strange and bizarre in nature. They are riddled with grammatical errors, filled with emojis, and contain Chinese characters. A common theme among the messages, though, is their blatant pro-Trump declarations.

The hackers seem to have accessed old or dormant administrator accounts, likely through social engineering and brute-forcing passwords. Reddit confirmed that none of the compromised accounts had two-factor authentication enabled, making it easier for hackers to slip through. At the time of writing, most of the subreddits have been cleaned up, thanks in part to a guide Reddit posted walking moderators through recovering their community pages.

The hack comes the day after Trump issued an executive order effectively banning the popular smartphone apps TikTok and WeChat, both of which are owned by Chinese companies. The order bans financial transactions with ByteDance, Ltd. and Tencent, the respective owners of TikTok and WeChat, after September 15.

What do you think about the Reddit hack? Did your favorite subreddit get compromised? Let us know in the comments.