Twitter account of PM Modi's personal website hacked, investigation on
On Thursday, the Twitter account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website was hacked, the social media giant confirmed. The account @narendramodi_in was compromised and cryptic messages were posted. Quickly after the development came to the fore, a Twitter spokesperson said, "We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted."
Hackers asked for generous donation: Reports
One tweet posted on the account, after it was hacked, read, "I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with crypto currency, Kindly Donate eth to 0xae073DB1e5752faFF169B1ede7E8E94bF7f80Be6. (sic)" And another tweet read, "Yes this account is hacked by John Wick (hckindia@tutanota.com), We have not hacked Paytm Mall. (sic)"
PM's personal account, having over 61 million followers, was unaffected
The verified account has over 2.5 million followers. Fortunately, PM Modi's personal account, with the handle @narendramodi, was spared. He has over 61.8 million followers on Twitter, making him one of the most famous world leaders on the platform. PM Modi began using Twitter in 2009, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The number of followers have only surged since then.
In July, accounts of Bezos, Gates, Musk, etc. were hacked
This development comes close to heels of a similar incident in July, wherein Twitter accounts of noted personalities like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, etc., were compromised. The hackers posted slightly varying iterations of a message that requested the public to send a certain amount (mostly $1,000). The amount, the hackers declared, would be doubled.
Twitter locked affected accounts, launched investigation, Dorsey felt terrible
When the incident got attention, one of the first things that Twitter did was lock all affected accounts, effectively disabling functions like resetting passwords, etc. Going the extra mile, it stopped even the unaffected verified Twitter users from posting anything. Announcing that an investigation is underway, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had said, "Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened."
