A cyber-attack has been carried out against the campaign website of President Donald Trump a week before America's presidential election.
Malicious hackers defaced the site's "About" page on Tuesday with a message that spoofed the domain seizure notices deployed by the United States Department of Justice.
After displaying the logos of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the DOJ, the attackers announced, "This site was seized."
The attackers then claimed to have obtained classified information about America's 45th president by compromising devices belonging to Trump and to members of his family. Among this data was information "proving that the trump-gov is involved in the origin of the corona virus," according to the hackers.
Visitors to the site were then informed that the attackers "have evidence that completely discredits Mr Trump as a president, proving his criminal involvement with foreign actors manipulating the 2020 elections."
The motivation for the attack appeared to be purely financial and not an attempt to defend democracy or expose an alleged crime.
After making claims about possessing evidence, the attackers invited visitors to the site to pay money into one of two Monero cryptocurrency accounts. One digital pot was titled "Yes, share the data," while the other was named "No, do not share the data."
No evidence was given to back up any of the claims made by the attackers.
Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said in a statement that no data had been stolen in the attack, which lasted fewer than 30 minutes.
"Earlier this evening, the Trump campaign website was defaced, and we are working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack," said Murtaugh on Twitter on Tuesday.
"There was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site. The website has been restored."
News of the hack and money-making scams follows a warning issued by the FBI on October 22 that a Russian state-sponsored APT actor, known variously as Berserk Bear, Energetic Bear, TeamSpy, Dragonfly, Havex, Crouching Yeti, and Koala in open-source reporting, has targeted dozens of SLTT government networks.