Compromised I&B ministry’s Twitter account restored, probe on

“The account @Mib_india has been restored. This is for the information of all the followers,” the ministry, which has 1.4 million followers on Twitter, tweeted after the account was restored

NEW DELHI: The Twitter handle of the Union information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry was compromised on Wednesday as its name was changed to that of entrepreneur Elon Musk temporarily before it was restored.

An official said an investigation will be conducted to find out what exactly happened. (Getty/Representational image)

“The account @Mib_india has been restored. This is for the information of all the followers,” the ministry, which has 1.4 million followers on Twitter, tweeted after the account was restored.

HT reached out to the spokesperson for the ministry, the office of I&B minister Anurag Thakur and Twitter, but did not receive a response immediately.

An official said an investigation will be conducted to see what exactly happened.

After the account was hacked, several tweets containing links to “amazing news” with Bitcoin written in the background were shared. HT cannot confirm what these links led to.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was briefly hacked after a tweet claiming that India has “officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender” was put out from it. The tweet was brought down a few minutes later.

Twitter said that all necessary steps were taken to secure the compromised handle.

The Prime Minister’s Office had tweeted, “The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised...In the brief period... any tweet shared must be ignored.”