PM Modi’s Website’s Twitter Account Briefly Hacked to Ask for Cryptocurrency

Twitter confirmed the hack, but said no other accounts were affected, and the account has been secured.

By Gopal Sathe | Updated: 8 December 2020 12:57 IST

PM Modi’s Website’s Twitter Account Briefly Hacked to Ask for Cryptocurrency

Hackers used the account of PM Modi's personal website to ask for Bitcoin

Highlights

PM Modi's website's Twitter account was briefly hacked
The account posted tweets asking for donations in Bitcoin
Tweets have been deleted and Twitter confirmed the account is now secure

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website's Twitter account was hacked, and tweets posted asking for people to donate cryptocurrency. This was confirmed by Twitter, and all the tweets posted as a result of the hack have been removed. However, screenshots are now being circulated on Twitter with people even claiming that these tweets were from PM Modi's account. However, the PM's account, which has 61.8 million followers, was not affected. The tweets were posted from the Twitter account used by PM Modi's official website that has only 2.5 million followers.

The now deleted tweets, from the verified account, asked people to donate to the PM National Relief Fund for COVID 19, and included an address for people to donate bitcoin. This looks similar to a Twitter hack that took place recently, where the accounts of several global leaders were compromised to ask for Bitcoins. Twitter confirmed to Gadgets 360 that the account had been hacked, and that it has taken steps to secure the account. It also said that no other accounts seemed affected.

Some of the now deleted tweets from the account.

“We're aware of this activity and have taken steps to secure the compromised account. We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted," a Twitter spokesperson wrote to Gadgets 360.

Gadgets 360 has also learnt from Twitter that it has found no indication or any correlation between this account compromise, and the incident that took place in July.

At that time, hackers had gotten access to the accounts of many world leaders and done something similar. The official accounts of former US President Barack Obama, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and media tycoon Mike Bloomberg, along with brands such as Apple and Uber, were amongst the ones affected by the hack.

All these accounts sent out tweets asking people to donate money in Bitcoin. Around 130 accounts were targeted by the attackers in the incident. It was later found that a 17-year-old Florida boy masterminded the hacking of celebrity accounts on Twitter.

According to the last of the now-deleted tweets whose screenshots are still circulating, the account was hacked by a group called John Wick, which, it was alleged, had also hacked into Paytm Mall. However the tweet denied responsibility for the Paytm Mall hack.

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