PM’s personal Twitter account was “briefly compromised”, his office informed on socials after shared a scam link about bitcoin giveaway.
So Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was hacked with a message saying India had adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and would distribute it to all citizens. The tweet was swiftly deleted and his office said the account had been very briefly compromised.
It is the second time Mr Modi’s Twitter account has been hacked. He’s a prolific tweeter and has more than 70 million followers – the most of any world leader. The deleted tweet from his main @narendramodi handle said the Indian government had officially bought 500 bitcoin and was “and distributing them to all residents of the country”.
“The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured. In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored,” PMO India tweeted.
A Twitter spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Reuters news agency that the company took all necessary steps to secure the compromised account as soon as it became aware of the activity. An investigation revealed no signs of any other affected accounts, the spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, sources at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In) would launch a “full-scale investigation headed by a senior official” and will submit its report to the ministry soon.
Shortly after the incident, PM Modi was back to tweeting as per usual on Sunday morning. In separate tweets, he wished Sharad Pawar on his birthday and stated that he would be participating in the “Depositors First: Guaranteed Time-bound Deposit Insurance Payment up to Rs 5 Lakh” programme at noon.
