The Prime Minister of India's Twitter account was hijacked and tweeted a lie saying 'Make Bitcoin legal tender'

by Presidencia de la República Mexicana

On December 12, 2021, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter account was hijacked, tweeting a URL that was likely to be false or phishing to make Bitcoin legal tender. The Prime Minister's Office has announced that Prime Minister Modi's account has been restored and is calling on him not to spread tweets while he was being hijacked.

Hackers take control of Indian prime minister's Twitter account to promote bitcoin giveaway scam
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/127246/hackers-take-control-of-indian-prime-ministers-twitter-account-to-promote-bitcoin-giveaway-scam

India Prime Minister's Twitter Compromised: Hacker Posts a Bitcoin Scam
https://cryptopotato.com/india-prime-ministers-twitter-compromised-hacker-posts-a-bitcoin-scam/

PM Modi's Twitter handle'very briefly' compromised, restored later | India News --Times of India
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pm-modis-twitter-handle-very-briefly-compromised-restored-later/articleshow/88232136.cms

Someone hijacked Prime Minister Modi's Twitter account, which has more than 73.4 million followers at the time of writing and boasts the 11th largest number of followers in the world. Hackers then said from Prime Minister Modi's account, 'India will officially adopt Bitcoin as fiat currency. The government will officially buy 500 BTC and distribute it to all residents in the country.' I tweeted a link that is likely to be fraudulent.

Hacked Indian PM Modi's Twitter account promotes bitcoin scam: pic.twitter.com/27LCdaW4Zi

— Ben Schaack (@BuyingStrength) December 12, 2021

500 BTC is equivalent to 2,843 million yen at the time of writing the article, but since the population of India is 1.38 billion as of 2020, if it is distributed to all, it will be about 0.00000036 BTC per person, which is only about 2 yen. Hmm.

After that, the Twitter account of the Prime Minister's Office said, 'Prime Minister Modi's Twitter account was compromised for a very short time and was immediately secured. Please ignore the tweets shared while the account was compromised.' I posted to confirm that Prime Minister Modi's account had been hijacked and called on me not to share tweets in the meantime.

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 (@PMOIndia) December 11, 2021

Twitter told the media, 'We are in constant contact with the Prime Minister's Office 24 hours a day, and when this issue becomes known, the steps our team needs to take to protect the compromised account. As a result of the investigation, there was no evidence that other accounts were affected at this time. ' ..

We have 24X7 open lines of communication with the PM's Office & our teams took necessary steps to secure the compromised account as soon as we became aware of this activity. Twitter spox

— ANI (@ANI) December 12, 2021