Microblogging website Twitter on Thursday has confirmed that the account of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official website was hacked. The hackers demanded Bitcoin and Ethereum donations towards PM National Relief Fund.
The hack comes just after a month of a series of hacks where the official Twitter handle of notable figures around the world was hacked and demanded Bitcoin from their followers. The hacker (or a group of hackers) had accumulated $150K (INR 1.05 crore) worth of Bitcoin within a span of a few hours.
The tweet was pulled down by Twitter within an hour but a few people managed to screenshot it, and it is now being widely shared on social media.
A spokesperson from Twitter 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.”
The tweet was posted at 3:09 AM on Thursday, at a time when most people from India were sleeping and due to this the tweet wasn’t able to do much financial damage to the people. The hacker only managed to accumulate INR 60 worth of cryptocurrency.
A quick look at the hacker’s Ethereum address shows that only one person transferred Ethereum to the hacker’s address. In a twist of fate, the hacker ended up losing more funds in the Ethereum transaction fee than in the donation. The hacker received $0.03 (INR 2) worth of Ethereum and ended up paying $10 (INR 730) in the gas fees.
Due to the timing of the tweet, the hack wasn’t able to cause much damage, thus preserving the status of cryptocurrency in India. Although people did found it amusing that the Narendra Modi’s account was hacked. Some people have expressed concern regarding the recent Twitter hacks and what it could mean for the society.
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