PM Narendra Modi's website account on Twitter hacked, investigation underway

Guwahati: The Twitter account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website was hacked and cryptic tweets were posted early on Thursday, September 3.

 The microblogging site informed that it was aware of the activity and has 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 told news agency Reuters.

In a series of tweets after the takeover of the verified handle of PM Modi, the hacker put out messages seeking donations to the Prime Minister's relief fund for Covid-19 using bitcoins.

It read " "I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with crypto currency, Kindly Donate eth to 0xae073DB1e5752faFF169B1ede7E8E94bF7f80Be6."

The account, with more than 2.5 million followers, is the official Twitter handle for Modi's personal website and the Narendra Modi mobile application. Meanwhile, PM Modi's personal Twitter account, which was not hit by the breach, has over 61 million followers.

As per reports, the tweets, which have now been removed, asked followers to donate to the PM National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.

The incident comes after many Twitter accounts of eminent personalities were hacked in July. Hackers had broken into the Twitter accounts of technology giants, politicians, celebrities and major firms in what had been an apparent Bitcoin scam.

Twitter accounts of verified users like Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk among others were compromised as messages related to cryptocurrency were posted on their official accounts. The corporate accounts for Uber and Apple also faced issues during the major breach.

The bogus tweets demanded to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address. The scam appeared to happen in two rounds, wherein the scammers reportedly posted similar Bitcoin-scamming tweets for the second time from both Gates' and Musk's accounts after their first tweets were deleted.

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