The hacker who defaced former US President Donald Trump’s website has been identified as a teenager who said his motivation was to attack the US because of its criticism of Islam and Turkey.
Newsflash tracked down and spoke to the hacker in an exclusive interview after he was identified by Turkish media outlet Haberler as Can Cebeci, 19, from the city of Sinop, which is located in north-central Turkey on the Black Sea coast.
Going under the name ‘RootAyyildiz’, the teenager, who said that he worked in “cyber security”, revealed how he had defaced Donald Trump’s website donaldjtrump.com.
The hack involved leaving a message in English saying: “Do not be like those who forget Allah, so Allah made them forget themselves. Here they really went astray”. (sic)
It also featured embedded footage from YouTube showing Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan giving a speech.
Cebeci said that he did it in reaction to what he termed US hostility towards Turkey and the failure to hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim preacher who the Turkish regime accuses of being behind the failed coup d’etat in 2016.
Speaking about the hack on Trumps’s website, Cebeci said: “The action was purely a hacktivist attempt to condemn the [US’] attacks on the religion of Islam and the Turkish state.”
The young self-proclaimed “hactivist” added: “I did it to get people’s attention to spread my messages.”
For Cebeci, “the ex-president is one of the bloodsuckers of the capitalist system like the others.”
Cebeci, who said that his father had bought him his first computer in 2009 and that he had been working on them ever since, said that he was not afraid of any consequences of his stunt, saying: “America can’t do anything to me, I’m not afraid.”
He also said that he has not so far been investigated by the Turkish authorities, adding: “I have not received any legal sanction in Turkey.”
Asked whether he was more of a ‘black hat’ or a ‘white hat’ hacker, Cebeci replied: “I’m not an ordinary hacker but a hacktivist, there is no hat in what we do.”
In the hacker world, a ‘black hat’ is typically someone who breaks into a computer network for malicious purposes, whereas a ‘white hat’ is usually more focused on finding vulnerabilities so that they can be patched.
Discussing the religious content of the message he posted on the website, Cebeci said: “I act according to Allah’s words and orders in all of my affairs.”
He also claimed the November 2020 hack on Joe Biden’s website, saying: “Yes I hacked Biden’s website as well.”
Asked whether his actions were directed more at the United States in general, as opposed to towards either Democrats or Republicans, Cebeci said: “What I did was generally against the US because of their attitude towards Islam and Turks.”
