In the early hours of Thursday, the official Twitter account linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website and mobile app was hacked. The hackers posted tweets inviting cryptocurrency-based donations to the PM National Relief Fund.
Started in 2011, the account has 2.5 million followers, 37,000 posted tweets over the years and goes by the handle -- @narendramodi_in.
PM Modi's Twitter account hacked.
— Irfan (@simplyirfan) September 2, 2020
🙄😕 Bitcoin? John Wick? Paytm Mall?
screenshots source: twitter pic.twitter.com/gj4E2Oai5z
The incident has been confirmed by Twitter, which claims to be taking all necessary steps to fully secure the compromised account, which is followed by 2.5 million people. The malicious crypto links posted via the compromised account have been removed.
“We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted," the media reports quoted a Twitter spokesperson as saying.
However, the micro-blogger platform emphasised that there is no indication or evidence of any correlation between Prime Minister Modi’s account getting hacked and a July incident where high-profile accounts belonging to Joe Biden, Obama, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others, were hacked to promote a bitcoin scam.
As of now, there has been no reaction to this hack attack from Prime Minister Modi.
Crypto scams have emerged as a new and popular method among cyber criminals, who post infected links on hacked social networking accounts aiming to enable phishing campaigns and attracting unsuspicious people to the risk of financial fraud.
After July's major Bitcoin-related hack attack on American VIPs and companies, reports revealed that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was warned about a growing number of employees and third-party contractors who have the ability to access user accounts and override security settings.
At the time of the July Twitter hacking incident, Twitter spokeswoman Aly Pavela said the company was looking into the issue.
TO make matters worse, crypto hackers are not just creeping into the Twitter accounts of public figures.
On 25 July, Ajay Nagar, one of India’s most popular YouTubers, aka CarryMinati, reported that one of his two channels on Google-owned YouTube had been hacked, and were displaying suspicious Bitcoin links to his followers.
