Don’t follow celebrities’ Twitter accounts blindly: Cyber police

In view of the recent spate of cyberattack wherein Twitter accounts of eminent personalities including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffet were

In view of the recent spate of cyberattack wherein Twitter accounts of eminent personalities including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffet were hacked, Maharashtra Cyber police on Thursday issued an advisory urging Twitter users not to blindly follow accounts, including those of prominent celebrities.

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Cyber police said accounts of several prominent personalities were hacked and used to post cryptocurrency scam messages and phishing links. Many users have fallen prey to the scams.

Maharashtra cyber police, the nodal anti-cybercrime law enforcement agency in the state, believe it is possible that hackers could try to gain access to prominent Indian Twitter users in a similar fashion. “In times of pandemic, any such hacking incident can also cause widespread rumours leading to chaos. Citizens should be alert and not blindly trust any tweet,” said Yashasvi Yadav, special inspector general of police (Cyber), Maharashtra.

Twitter support has found that these interruptions were the result of social engineering attack. They have revealed that accounts of some employees, who have access to internal tools of the microblogging site, were compromised which led to the hackers gaining control of the prominent twitter handles.

After the attack, Maharashtra Cyber police have intensified their vigilance as there is possibility of such incident happening in the Indian cyberspace since several Indian public personalities use twitter frequently.

To prevent users from falling prey to the scam, the police advised Twitter users not to blindly trust content posted on social media platforms and take time to determine if the content is authentic or fake.

Police urged users not to spread or further circulate any posts that seem like fake news or rumours as well as posts promoting hate speech and violence.

“We have also asked other social media platforms to be on the lookout for similar incident, and inform the police in case of a cybersecurity breach,” a senior officer said.