The accounts could have been hacked due to malicious link being clicked by the handlers of the account or the password being compromised
Representational image. News18
The Twitter accounts of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Mann Deshi Mahila Bank (a micro finance bank) and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) were hacked on 2 January. The incident comes weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was hacked.
According to India Today, the hackers renamed the handles as “Elon Musk”. Several tweets promoting cryptocurrency were posted on the accounts, which even re-shared several of Musk’s tweets. While the ICWA’s Twitter account was recovered, the malicious tweets were still visible on the IMA and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank’s Twitter handles.
As per an India Today report, the accounts could have been hacked due to malicious link being clicked by the handlers of the account or the password being compromised.
The IT security group of the Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology, CERT-IN, is looking into the hacking of the accounts.
The ICWA, which has the Vice-President as ex-officio president, is an “Institute of National Importance”.
The incident comes after PM Modi’s account “was very briefly compromised” on 12 December last year. The account posted a tweet claiming that India had adopted bitcoin as legal tender and also claimed that the country had brought 500 BTC and was going to distribute it among residents.
The Prime Minister’s Office later said that after the matter was escalated to Twitter, the account was secured. The incident also prompted several Opposition leaders to express their concerns, adding that Modi’s account being compromised reflects gaps in the country’s cyber security. Following the hacking, politicians also questioned if the Aadhaar data of citizens was safe.
Twitter spokesperson told ANI that the social media giant’s probe revealed that there were no signs of other impacted accounts at that time.
In July 2021, the All India Majils-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen’s (AIMIM) official Twitter account was also hacked. The name of the handle was altered to Elon Musk and the profile picture was changed to an image of the Tesla CEO.
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