PM Modi's Twitter account restored after second hacking in 16 months; fake Crypto tweet deleted

By Team Newsable | First Published Dec 12, 2021, 9:33 AM IST

The hacking of the Prime Minister's account is being linked to the Bill that is set to be brought in Parliament by the Narendra Modi government with regard to the cryptocurrency regulation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter account was compromised for a few hours early Sunday morning, The Prime Minister's Office confirmed the hacking. At the same time, the PMO also informed that any post shared when the account was compromised should not be ignored.

The hacking of the Prime Minister's account is being linked to the Bill that is set to be brought in Parliament by the Narendra Modi government with regard to the cryptocurrency regulation. One of the posts made from the hacked account wrongly informed that India had officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender and that the government was distributing the 500 BTC officially bought by it to all residents of the country. Noting that the future had come today, the Twitter post led users to the link of a site names India-official.blogspot dot com.

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Image: The fake post made from the compromised account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi

The PMO and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's Indian Computer Emergency Response Team swung into action. While Twitter restored Prime Minister Narendra Modi's account, the CERT-IN team launched an investigation to identify the origin of the hacking. A Twitter spokesperson said that the micro-blogging platform took 'necessary' steps to secure the compromised account. He further said that the investigation did not show an impact on any other accounts.

The hacking of the Prime Minister's Twitter post triggered massive outrage on social media with many wondering that if the official account of the country's Prime Minister could be hacked and manipulated, how safe could other Indian social media users feel similar acts. Others also wondered if Twitter's security had been compromised.

This is the second time that Prime Minister Modi's Twitter account has been compromised. A series of posts were issued from the Prime minister's personal Twitter handle -- once again surrounding cryptocurrency -- in September 2020. At that time, the hacker, who identified himself as John Wick, sought donations for the PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19 via cryptocurrency.

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