New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account for personal website and mobile app was hacked early this morning, the social media giant has confirmed. Twitter said that it has taken “steps to secure the compromised account” and is “actively investigating” the situation.
The account goes by the handle narendramodi_in.
“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 said in a statement.
The tweets, which have since been taken down, asked followers to donate to the PM National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.
The account has over 2.5 million followers and is the official Twitter handle for PM Modi’s personal website — www.narendramodi.in — and the ‘Narendra Modi’ mobile application.
In July, a number of high profile Twitter accounts including that of US presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and of Apple were simultaneously hacked on Wednesday by attackers to carry out what appeared to be a cryptocurrency scam.
According to The Verge, The Tesla CEO’s account issued a strange tweet at 4:17 pm ET this afternoon reading, “I’m feeling generous because of Covid-19. I’ll double any BTC payment sent to my BTC address for the next hour. Good luck, and stay safe out there!” The tweet also contained a bitcoin address, presumably one associated with the hacker’s crypto wallet.
The tweet was then deleted and replaced by another one more plainly laying out the fake promotion. “Feeling grateful doubling all payments sent to my BTC address! You send $1,000, I send back $2,000! Only doing this for the next 30 minutes,” it read before also getting deleted.
The Verge reported that it suspects that someone either found a severe security loophole in Twitter’s login processor or has gained access to a Twitter employee’s admin privileges.
