Miscreants hack Jal Shakti ministry, Swacch Bharat Mission's Twitter handle; probe underway

It is reportedly said that the hacking took place early in the morning on Thursday, but the account was soon restored. Cyber experts and security agencies are investigating the incident.

Miscreants on Thursday (December 1) briefly hacked the Twitter handles of the Ministry of Jal Shakti and Swacch Bharat Mission. The hackers posted a series of tweets tagging SwachhBharat and other ministries.

Presently, all tweets have been deleted. The tweets posted also tagged some likely bot accounts and some real accounts and tweeted about crypto wallet "Sui Wallet". Hackers had posted over 80 tweets. It has now been restored.

A tweet promoting crypto wallet Sui Wallet was first posted by the Jal Shakti ministry account at 5:38 am. The account's profile picture was also changed from the Indian flag to Sui's logo along with its cover image being changed to show Sui's logo and name.

The original tweet by the ministry's handle also tagged numerous unknown accounts and subsequent tweets and quote tweets followed the same pattern.

The account was restored shortly afterwards and the suspicious tweets were deleted.

This incident comes after a ransomware attack which put All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi's servers out of order on November 23. The hackers have allegedly demanded Rs 200 crore in cryptocurrency, though the Delhi Police has denied any ransom demand was made.

A case of extortion and cyber terrorism was registered and the India Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), Delhi Police and representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs are investigating the incident.