In the wee hours of the morning, a bunch of attackers, identifying themselves as “John Wick,” took over a Twitter account linked to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s website. The account, which is separate from the PM’s official one, has more than 2.5 million followers.
However, hackers wanted to do nothing with the account. TNW got in touch with the hackers and they told me that it was just to squash a recent report that alleged the group had hacked Paytm Mall, a local ecommerce outlet. Paytm Mall denied any breach of their platform.
The hackers also mentioned that the PM’s site, narendramodi.in, is riddled with bugs, and that they wanted to get in touch with its admins to sort these out.
In tweets from the breached account, the group also asked followers to ‘donate’ money to a Bitcoin wallet, saying the money would go towards “PM National relief fund for COVID-19.” These tweets were deleted and the account was soon restored by Twitter.
#NarendraModiPM Twitter account hack
Narendra modi Twitter account
Hacked pic.twitter.com/qpfj37YU9r— Tejas jadhav (@Tejasja01960547) September 3, 2020
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
Twitter acknowledged the hack and added that it found no connection between this hack and the notorious hack of July that saw attackers take over accounts of Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
In a statement, the company said it’s investigating if other accounts were impacted:
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.
To have better security of your accounts, you should check out our guide to set up two-factor authentication for Twitter.
Did you know we have an online event about product design coming up? Join the Sprint track at TNW2020 to explore the latest trends and emerging best practices in product development.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.