Key Takeaways:
- Twitter Accounts of the Indian Medical Association and Two Others Compromised, Hackers Rename it ‘Elon Musk.’
- The hacker promoted cryptocurrency in the majority of his tweets.
- This occurred just weeks after Prime Minister Modi’s account was hacked, which also saw a similar theme of posts following his public comments on cryptocurrency.
On Sunday, 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. The handle was renamed ‘Elon Musk’ by the alleged hackers.
The hacker responded to tweets from Elon Musk’s official Twitter account and even Tesla. The hacker promoted cryptocurrency in the majority of his tweets. The hacker changed not only the name but also the profile picture of the official Twitter accounts.
This occurred just weeks after Prime Minister Modi’s account was hacked, which also saw a similar theme of posts following his public comments on cryptocurrency. The account, on the other hand, was restored in a matter of hours, with the fake tweets later deleted.
Both hacking incidents had one thing in common i.e. after being hacked, the accounts sent out a slew of tweets promoting cryptocurrencies. According to sources, this could be the result of the password being compromised or a malicious link being clicked by the account’s handlers.
A similar hacking incident was reported in July of last year. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) account was hacked, and the name was changed to ‘Elon Musk.’ The profile picture on Twitter was also changed to match the name, with the Tesla CEO’s face in it.
At the time of writing, neither the IMA nor the ICWA accounts had Elon Musk’s name or photo. The bad actors, on the other hand, have bombarded the accounts with fake crypto tweets and even commented on Elon Musk’s posts to entice people. It appears that the accounts will take some time to return to their original state.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s cybersecurity arm, CERT-In, is currently investigating this breach. While the bio remained unchanged, the micro-finance bank’s Twitter handle was changed to a dot, with the most recent tweets from the early morning of Monday, 3 January promoting cryptocurrency.
