Key Takeaways:
- Today the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s Twitter account was compromised.
- The hackers changed the account’s name to “Elon Musk” and began tweeting “great job.”
- The ministry regained control of the account, restored the profile picture, and deleted the tweets posted by the hackers.
- The hackers even used it to post some malicious links.
On Wednesday, January 12, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s Twitter account was compromised. The hackers changed the account’s name to “Elon Musk” and began tweeting “great job.” However, after some time, the ministry regained control of the account, restored the profile picture, and deleted the tweets posted by the hackers. The hackers even used it to post some malicious links and posted a tweet sending a Telegram invite.
On December 12, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal Twitter account was briefly hacked. While the account was quickly restored, a tweet promoting cryptocurrency was already shared from the handle. On January 3, the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), the Indian Medical Association (IMA), and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank (a microfinance bank) had their Twitter accounts hacked. In that case, as well, the hackers renamed the handle ‘Elon Musk.’
The fonts used to change the names of the profiles in today’s (January 12, 2021) and the (January 3, 202) incidents appear to be the same. The posted content ‘AMAZZZING’ appeared to be similar as well, though the links tweeted in both cases appeared to be different.
