Hours after the Twitter account of Uttar Pradesh's chief minister's office was briefly hacked, the state government said "strict action" will be taken against those involved, adding that the attempt to hack the account was made at around 12:30 am.
"An attempt was made to hack the official Twitter account @CMOfficeUP of the Chief Minister's Office on April 09 at 12:30 am by anti-social elements, who had posted some tweets which were recovered immediately. (sic)", a tweet in Hindi read. The UP CMO (@CMOfficeUP) Twitter account has four million followers at present.
A post based on a tutorial called ‘How to turn your BAYC/MAYC animated on Twitter’ was posted from the CMO account after being hacked. In addition, the profile picture on the UP CMO account was replaced by the image of “Bored Ape NFT”, visuals shared by news agency ANI showed.
The hackers also reportedly posted a thread of some random tweets on the UP CMO account which were later removed as the account was restored.
{{/usCountry}}The hackers also reportedly posted a thread of some random tweets on the UP CMO account which were later removed as the account was restored.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier in December 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter handle was also very briefly hacked and was secured later, after a link promising a bitcoin giveaway was shared on the account, Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said. "India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender. The government has officially bought 500 BTC and is distributing them to all residents of the country," the tweet - which was later deleted- read.
“Over 600 social media accounts of the central government were hacked in the last five years,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Responding to a query on the hacking of the government's Twitter handles and e-mail accounts, the minister said since 2017, 641 such accounts have been hacked, news agency PTI reported.
Altogether 175 accounts were hacked in 2017, 114 in 2018, 61 in 2019, 77 in 2020, 186 in 2021 and 28 so far this year, Anurag Thakur informed the parliament on Tuesday in a written reply.
(With inputs from PTI, ANI)