Is Hunter Biden’s laptop password really “Hunter02”?

Or is someone just pranking us?

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Is Hunter Biden's laptop password really "Hunter02"?

I don’t know what to make of this story published on The Daily Mail website this weekend, and since repeated by other newspapers.

Daily mail headline

The headline (which in Daily Mail tradition is typically wordy) reads:

“EXCLUSIVE: National security nightmare of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop containing phone numbers for the Clintons, Secret Service officers and most of the Obama cabinet plus his sex and drug addictions – all secured by the password Hunter02”

It’s the bit about the password which interests me the most. Obviously, if true, “Hunter02” is a very poor choice of password. Particularly for somebody called Hunter.

But what’s bizarre is that there has been a meme all about having “hunter2” as a password, for the best part of 20 years.

Hunter2

Is it possible that somebody is having a joke at the media’s expense, and has duped some non-tech savvy journalists into believing that the son of US Presidential candidate Joe Biden might have used a joke password like “hunter02”?

And if that password makes us raise a doubtful eyebrow, might we be wise to be similarly cautious about other claims made in the article – especially with a contentious US election due to take place tomorrow?

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Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

12 comments on “Is Hunter Biden’s laptop password really “Hunter02”?”

  1. Marc Ruef

    At https://www.scip.ch we are running an internal service to do statistical analysis of password leaks. Trivia: Only 0.000107% of leaked users choose "Hunter02" as password ;)

  2. Farmbrough

    I would be cautious about anything in the Daily Mail. They told us Eric Idle would be the new Doctor Who.

    1. Graham CluleyGraham Cluley · in reply to Farmbrough

      That is, however, more believable than when The Mirror claimed Paul Daniels was going to be Doctor Who.

      https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/paul-daniels-to-be-dr-who-1597288

  3. ethan

    They really let anyone write articles at the daily mail.

  4. Alexander Neff

    Password aside, the laptop just happened to contain a treasure trove that hits quite literally every conspiracy theory note at once. Russian agitprop is getting lazy these days.

  5. Lloyd Wasser

    This is all smoke and mirrors in my opinion, and a tad too convenient as it all dropped just weeks before the election. The problem? Trump’s insane base will believe it. Hopefully no one else will. It’s lazy fake news at best. And a real stretch. BTW? Why would anyone care that Hunter have live cam sex? The current President of the US is rumoured to have been peed on and regularly craps his adult diapers when his Adderal high wears off. Live cam sex pales in comparison.

    1. jj litt · in reply to Lloyd Wasser

      dude its nothign to do with crack or hookers that doesnt matter.
      the laptop has been verified 100 times and even admitted by hunter on 60 minutes
      "THERE COULD BE A LAPTOP I LOST… IT COULD BE IN THE HANDS OF FOREIGN NATIONALS>… IT COULD BE IN POSSESSION OF RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE..> ALL THESE THINGS COULD BE TRUE…. I JUST DONT RECALL IT, BUT IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. I DON'T REMEMBER TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY…." to give plausible deniability but there are videos with him and his FInger Lakes tattoos that nobody else has saying and doing things nobody else woudl know or do with facial recognition software giving it a 100% match. so keep on sayings its a stretch, ur just making urself look like the fkn clown show u are

      1. jj litt · in reply to jj litt

        what it has to do with is the fact him and his father are compromised – fully compromised – by foreign intelligence and foreign chinese communist party members; as in, they have been doing business with them sure but they are in too deep and they have all kinds of leverage and blackmail on them. if everybody stopped being ignorant and actually reviewed the non-crack non-hooker data all together we would have him impeached and out of office by end of day. demon rats don't want to look at the truth because… well because you are a demon and a rat

    2. Mjm · in reply to Lloyd Wasser

      Smoking crack and banging underage prostitutes is a bit worse,and it must really hurt to learn it's verified

  6. Yousef Syed

    Hunter Biden is known to have various drug addictions – Crack being among them. As such, his password choice is hardly surprising…

  7. Gene Breen

    Hunter Biden is an idiot. I would not republish the claim about his password but I can totally believe it. What do you think the chance is he could successfully type in legitimately secure 16-32 bit password when he is coked off his gourd?!

  8. Angel

    Passwords are not fit for purpose to protect devices same as this election to choose governor that will make the life of the people better.
    People with power and money have IT servants who know about MFA and do not bring the laptop for repair at the nearest Internet cafe for repair.

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