Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter deal with @narendramodi, which can be linked to his web site, was “very briefly compromised” on Sunday, the PMO workplace mentioned in a put up on Twitter.
“The Twitter deal with of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account was instantly secured. Within the transient interval that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared have to be ignored,” the tweet mentioned.
Modi has 73.4 million followers on Twitter, which makes him the eleventh most adopted deal with on the social media platform, based on business estimates.
The breach got here to mild when Modi’s Twitter deal with was utilized by unknown attackers to publish a put up that falsely claimed that India has adopted Bitcoin as a authorized tender and the federal government of India has purchased 500 Bitcoins to distribute amongst residents of the nation.
The put up was flagged by some Twitter customers as the federal government of India has clearly mentioned that non-public cryptos won’t be accepted as authorized tender within the nation.
Following this, a Twitter spokesperson clarified: “We’ve got 24X7 open strains 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 right now.”
The way forward for cryptos in India nonetheless hangs in steadiness and is predicted to be determined within the ongoing winter session of the Parliament when the federal government tables the cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Foreign money Invoice, 2021.
This is not the primary time Modi’s Twitter deal with was compromised. In September 2020, the deal with was breached by a menace actor that used the pseudonym John Wick. After the breach, Modi’s deal with was used to induce the general public to make beneficiant donations within the type of cryptos to the PM Nationwide Aid Fund to combat covid-19.
Concentrating on of social media handles of high-profile people together with company and state heads and utilizing the transient entry over them to solicit cryptocurrencies has develop into a fad amongst menace actors.
In July 2020, Twitter handles of over 130 individuals together with US president Joe Biden, former US president Barack Obama, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft founder Invoice Gates had been compromised and used for a crypto rip-off.
The attackers used the compromised Twitter accounts to make false guarantees to double any bitcoin deposits made to a rip-off account. A whole lot of unsuspecting customers had been tricked and deposits value $ 100,000 had been made into the rip-off accounts, based on the US Division of Justice.
Nevertheless, inside weeks of the incident, three individuals together with a youngster had been arrested and charged by regulation enforcement businesses within the US for identification theft and cash laundering.
Supply: Live Mint