PM Modi’s Twitter handle ‘briefly compromised’, bitcoin giveaway link shared

Responding to queries despatched by The Indian Express, a spokesperson for the corporate mentioned that Twitter had “24X7 open traces of communication with the PM’s Workplace”, and that “essential steps to safe the compromised account” have been taken as quickly because the platform was knowledgeable about it.

“Now we have 24X7 open traces of communication with the PM’s Workplace and our groups took essential steps to safe the compromised account as quickly as we grew to become conscious of this exercise. Our investigation has revealed that there are not any indicators of another impacted accounts presently,” a spokesperson for the corporate mentioned.

The Twitter deal with of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been instantly secured.

Within the temporary interval that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared have to be ignored.

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) December 11, 2021

Twitter, nonetheless, didn’t reply to additional queries looking for to know the time at which Modi’s account was hacked and once they have been knowledgeable about the identical, the time taken to convey down the errant tweet, or whether or not the platform employs a further stage of safety requirements for public accounts of significance, similar to these of political leaders, governments heads and others.

In the meantime, sources on the Ministry of Electronics and Data Know-how mentioned that the Indian Pc Emergency Response System (Cert-In) would launch a “full-scale investigation headed by a senior official” and can submit its report back to the ministry quickly.

On December 12, at 2:11 am, Modi’s Twitter account put out a tweet saying India had formally adopted Bitcoin as a authorized tender, and that the federal government had purchased 500 bitcoins, which it was “distributing” to all residents of the nation. The mentioned tweet additionally had a hyperlink to a weblog, which a postscript which mentioned “The longer term has come right this moment”.

Good Morning Modi ji,
Sab Changa Si?

SS Credit score : @AdityaRajKaul pic.twitter.com/0YLVdzmreq

— Srinivas BV (@srinivasiyc) December 11, 2021

Almost an hour later, one other Tweet from the official deal with of the Prime Minister’s Workplace mentioned that the prime minister’s twitter deal with was “very briefly compromised” and that the matter had been raised with Twitter.

The Twitter deal with of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been instantly secured. Within the temporary interval that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared have to be ignored,” the tweet from PMO mentioned.

That is the second time in lower than two years that Modi’s account has been hacked and tweets with hyperlinks to cryptocurrency have been shared. In September 2020, the twitter account linked to the prime minister’s private web site and app had despatched out Tweets asking for donations to the Prime Minister’s Covid reduction fund via cryptocurrency.

In July final 12 months, the Twitter accounts of former president of the US Barack Obama, former vice-president and current president of the US Joe Biden, singer and rapper Kanye West, Microsoft founder Invoice Gates, and Tesla chief Elon Musk despatched out the identical tweets which mentioned that if folks despatched bitcoins on a sure hyperlink, these folks would double their cash.

Although these tweets have been eliminated, a number of the accounts that have been then compromised despatched out these tweets once more simply hours later. Twitter had, following the mass breach, mentioned that a number of of its staff who had entry to inner techniques had their accounts compromised in a “coordinated social engineering assault,” which resulted within the hack.