India Prime Minister’s Twitter Account Compromised: Attackers Demand Cryptocurrencies

Twitter continues to experience technical issues trying to protect high-profile accounts as the social media giant has confirmed another hack. This time, it involved India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Upon taking over the account, the perpetrators had requested donations in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Twitter Hacks – The Indian Edition

Less than two months ago, the social media giant experienced a significant security breach. The hackers, which turned out to be led by a teenager, gained control over the network and demonstrated that they could access basically any Twitter handle. They initiated a blatant Bitcoin giveaway scam by compromising the accounts of the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama, and more.

Twitter remained transparent regarding what had transpired, including revealing that the total number of affected accounts was 130, and that the social giant had been implementing some critical security updates to prevent similar events in the future.

However, it seems that these measures may not have been enough as the company went through another hack earlier today. This time, the victim was the official Twitter handle for the personal website of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the BBC.

“We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted.” – commented a Twitter spokeswoman.

Bitcoin Involvement

Although the perpetrators are yet to be identified, the situation resembles the July Twitter hack in more than one way. Apart from targeting high-profile accounts with millions of followers, the attackers have reportedly involved Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

This time, though, the perpetrators didn’t run a fake giveaway scam in which they promised to double every BTC sent to particular addresses. They actually requested donations with bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies.

“I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with cryptocurrency.” – reportedly said a now-deleted tweet.

At the time of this writing, it’s still unclear if anyone had fallen for this scam and sent any funds. The tweets were deleted, and the account was suspended until Twitter completes its investigation and resolves the case.

However, it’s worth noting that India already has a somewhat controversial history with cryptocurrencies. The country’s Supreme Court lifted a 2-year-ban on cryptocurrency usage earlier this year, but more recent reports have suggested that the government could reverse the decision and apply another ban.

As such, similar events that portray cryptocurrencies in a negative perspective could enhance the critics’ opinions that digital asset usage has to be prohibited in the country.