Political leaks disrupt Ecuadoran election

Cory Doctorow 12:21 am Wed Jan 18, 2017

Opponents of Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa — himself a prolific and shrewd social media campaigner — have had their social media accounts hacked and used to dump embarrassing transcripts purporting to show their party in disarray and romantic scandals in their personal lives.

The breach was claimed by people claiming to be part of Anonymous. An account that claims to speak for Anonymous in Ecuador disavowed Anonymous involvement in the hack.

The Correa government is known to have been a customer of Hacking Team, the disgraced Italian government malware vendor, and to value social media an an important political tool.

Presidential candidate Dalo Bucarám (329K followers), and vice-presidential candidate Andrés Páez (86K followers) were hacked on January 15th. Their twitter accounts were used to spread a chat allegedly taken from the latter taking about disagreements between the party and talking about a romantic affair. Several other accounts, including those of journalists Carlos Vera (330K followers), uan Carlos Calderón (19K followers), and National Congresswoman Mae Montaño (12K followers).

Ecuadorian National Elections Are Being Hacked Too
[Andrés Delgado-Ron/Medium]

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