No, the Indian government did not buy Bitcoin
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s official Twitter account was hacked today.
In several identical tweets, Modi tweeted about India making Bitcoin legal tender and buying 500 BTC ($ 24.6 million) to redistribute all of those coins to the country’s residents.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal Twitter account hacked by Crypto Punters; Immediately after strict communication with private company through PMO. secured pic.twitter.com/dBx0IzUgNY
– MeghUpdates???? â„¢ (@MeghBulletin) December 12, 2021
The apparently bogus message was accompanied by a link to a mass giveaway scam.
After being notified of the hack, Twitter contacted the Prime Minister’s office and recorded the tweets.
Modi then urged its 73.4 million followers to ignore the message shared while the account was being compromised.
Twitter handle from PM @narendramodi was breached very quickly. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account was immediately secured.
During the brief amount of time an account has been compromised, any tweets shared must be ignored.
– PMO Indian (@PMOIndia) December 11, 2021
Other accounts were not affected by the incident, said Twitter.
Biggest Bitcoin hack on Twitter to date
As reported by U.Today, the official Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian and other famous people were hacked last July to promote a fake Bitcoin gift. This is the biggest hack the popular social media platform has experienced to date.
Twitter later made it clear that its top accounts had been compromised with the help of a social engineering attack in which hackers tricked a Twitter employee into granting him access to the internal system of the microblogging platform.
In March, a Florida teenager who orchestrated the attack pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by another three years probation.
Regulation of cryptocurrencies and social media
The latest Twitter hack comes after Modi said he would soon make a final decision on how to regulate the crypto industry after months of speculation.
During a virtual summit with US President Joe Biden, the Prime Minister called for work on global regulations for cryptocurrencies and social media to ensure that they do not harm other countries.
We must … jointly create global standards for new technologies such as social networks and cryptocurrencies so that they serve to strengthen democracy and not to undermine it.