In Brief:
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was ‘very briefly compromised.’
- Hackers announced that India adopted bitcoin as legal tender and bought 500 BTC to distribute among the citizens.
- The tweet featured a fraudulent link to a blog whose destination and the information about the hackers are both unknown.
On December 12, 2021, around 2 a.m., Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was ‘very briefly compromised’ and utilized to spread false information regarding Bitcoin’s widespread adoption in India.
One of the Twitter users tweeted that the tweets by hackers announced that India had made bitcoin legal tender in the nation and has purchased 500 BTC to distribute among the citizens.
The tweet featured a fraudulent link to a blog, as well as a postscript that read: “The future has arrived today.” The link’s destination and information about the hackers are both unknown.
The Prime Minister’s office confirmed in a tweet that the account with the handle @narendramodi, which has over 73.4 million followers, had been restored since the short incident with the hacker tweets now deleted.
As part of its “full-scale investigation” into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter hacking, India’s Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In), the national central body for monitoring cyber security incidents and threats, will contact Twitter and Google.
Prime Minister Modi’s account was previously hacked in September 2020, when hackers requested cryptocurrency donations to a Covid-19 Relief Fund from Modi’s followers.
This hacking event takes place as the Indian Government is working on a new crypto bill. Nirmala Sitharaman, the country’s finance minister, said last month that the government has no plans yet to recognize Bitcoin as a currency.
In July of last year, the Twitter accounts of former US President Barack Obama, current US President Joe Biden, singer and rapper Kanye West, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk all sent out similar tweets claiming that sending bitcoins to a specific link would double the amount sent.
