said the company was “alerted by a CERT that certain accounts were being misused by hackers in violation of Proton’s Terms of Service,” leading to their disabling. A CERT is an official government agency working on cybersecurity, such as the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) in the Department of Homeland Security.

Proton’s CEO later announced that the accounts were reinstated, following another post by the company that said the company does “stand with journalists,” but that it “cannot see the content of accounts and therefore cannot always know when anti-abuse measures may inadvertently affect legitimate activism.”