PM Modi's Personal Twitter Account 'Briefly Compromised', Says PMO After Bitcoin Giveaway Link Share

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal Twitter account was “briefly compromised”, the PMO posted on the social networking site early on Sunday morning, after it shared a scam link promising a bitcoin giveaway.

“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 tweeted. The account has now been restored and the tweets deleted.

Several users shared screenshots on Twitter of tweets put out from PM Modi’s @narendramodi account, which read: “India has officially accepted bitcoin as legal tender. The government has officially bought 500 BTC and distributing them to all residents of the country.” Along with the tweet, a possible scam link was also attached.

Soon, the trend #Hacked began trending in India after PM Modi’s account was compromised.

Srinivas BV, National President of the Indian Youth Congress, also posted the link, asking the prime minister if everything was alright.

Political activist Tehseen Poonawalla also took to Twitter and said, “Was the Twitter account of the Hon’ble PM shri #NarendraModi ji hacked? And promise of #Bitcoin!!”

Commenting on the incident, a Twitter spokesperson said: “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. Our probe revealed that there’re no signs of any other impacted accounts at this time.”

Earlier, in September 2020, the Twitter account linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website and mobile app was hacked.

In a series of tweets, the messages posted on Twitter account of PM Modi’s personal website, which goes by the handle narendramodi_in, 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.”

Minutes later, another tweet was posted, saying, “Yes this account is hacked by John Wick ([email protected]), We have not hacked Paytm Mall.”

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