The Twitter account, which updates Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website and mobile app was hacked by an unknown group, the social media giant confirmed on Thursday.
After the account hack, a series of tweets asking its followers to donate to a relief fund through cryptocurrency were posted from the account. The account, which has 2.5 million followers, with the handle narendramodi_in has been restored and the malicious tweets are deleted. A screengrab showed that hackers had put out a tweet proclaiming they had taken over the account.
“Yes this account is hacked by John Wick (hckindia@tutanota.com), We have not hacked Paytm Mall (sic),” read one of the tweets posted on the account.
"I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with cryptocurrency, Kindly Donate eth to 0xae073DB1e5752faFF169B1ede7E8E94bF7f80Be6 (sic)," read another tweet.
The tweet was later deleted. However, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) or the personal handle of PM Modi is yet to put out any statement over the incident.
While talking about the issue, a Twitter spokeswoman said, “We're aware of this activity and have 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.”
According to reports, On August 30, cybersecurity firm Cyble had claimed that hacker group John Wick was behind a data breach at Paytm Mall, the e-commerce unit of Paytm. Twitter said at this stage, there is no indication or evidence of any correlation between this account compromise and the incident that took place in July.
In July, scores of high profile Twitter accounts including that of US presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and of Apple were simultaneously hacked by attackers to carry out a cryptocurrency scam.
Notably, this incident of PM Modi's personal handle getting hacked comes after the personal website of Union Minister G Kishan Reddy was targeted by self-claimed Pakistani hackers in August.
The website was hacked on Independence Day and the hackers had put messages related to Free Kashmir, Pakistan, and also warned the Government of India. The incident has been confirmed by G Kishan Reddy's office in Hyderabad later.
(Inputs from Agencies)
