On Wednesday, the official Twitter handle of the ministry of information and broadcasting seemed to be briefly hacked.
Several journalists tweeted that the name of the handle was briefly changed to “Elon Musk” and the timeline had a series of tweets urging people to click on a link. The hackers also changed the font of the handle.
It seems the official Twitter handle of the I&B Ministry @MIB_India was hacked temporarily. Renamed after billionaire Elon Musk, with a number of what appear to be spam tweets. pic.twitter.com/q1GG7ZTwi1
— Krishn Kaushik (@Krishn_) January 12, 2022
#Breaking: Official Twitter account of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has been hacked.
— Mohit Sharma (@iMohit_Sharma) January 12, 2022
The name of the handle was changed to guise itself as #ElonMusk and a number of suspicious tweets were generated by the hacked account.
Attempts being made to recover the account. pic.twitter.com/elLzANZMeO
Breaking on @IndiaToday ...
— Chaiti Narula (@Chaiti) January 12, 2022
Official Twitter handle of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has been hacked.
The alleged hackers have renamed the handle as Elon Musk.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting account compromised ?@MIB_India pic.twitter.com/wQvVrvWpCr
— Arvind Gunasekar (@arvindgunasekar) January 12, 2022
India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting account compromised. @MIB_India pic.twitter.com/W1PQxr03jK
— Rishikesh Kumar (@rishhikesh) January 12, 2022
Shortly afterwards, the ministry put out a tweet indicating that the account had been restored. The spam tweets were deleted from the timeline as well.
The account @Mib_india has been restored. This is for the information of all the followers.
— Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (@MIB_India) January 12, 2022
According to a report by India Today, the Twitter accounts of the Indian Council of World Affairs, Indian Medical Association and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank were also hacked on January 3. The handles were renamed “Elon Musk” in that case too. The report also states that during the January 3 hackings the font of the handle was the same as this time. Those behind the hackings have not yet been identified.
Last month, prime minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was also briefly hacked with Bitcoin posts.
Also Read: The ‘two factor’: How journalists can protect themselves from twitter hacks
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