Jakarta – The Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister reported that the personal Instagram account belonging to coordinating security affairs minister and vice presidential candidate Mahfud MD had been recovered following a hacking incident.
"The account is secured. We have regained control [of it]," said the coordinating minister's expert staff Rizal Mustary on Tuesday.
Rizal said the management team had reclaimed the account, @mohmahfudmd, at around 6 p.m. after being hacked for approximately two hours.
After it was recovered, the account deleted an unauthorized video post uploaded during the hack and posted two new videos about Mahfud attending a campaign event where he answered various questions about how he uncovered phenomenal legal cases, including a case that made headlines involving former police general Ferdy Sambo.
Previously, Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud campaign team spokesperson Chico Hakim confirmed that Mahfud's official Instagram account was hacked in the afternoon. The hackers uploaded a video at around 4 p.m. of Israeli soldiers playing soccer.
The video included captions in Hebrew reading, "God is above me, who can control me?"
After the hacking, the campaign team's deputy executive director for social media Eko Kuntadhi added that his team hoped that the hacking would not be associated with the upcoming election. He also urged the account's followers to ignore incoming posts that were uploaded under Mahfud's name.
The campaign team said it had taken immediate action by contacting Meta, the company behind Instagram.
Ganjar also commented on the issue, where he emphasized the importance of cyber security in addressing the hacking incident.
"Our security system and our cyber security need more attention. If Pak Mahfud's [account] can be hacked, then maybe other people's accounts can also be hacked easily as well," said Ganjar, as quoted by kompas.com.