News has been circulated through a tweet post in India from the Indian premier’s Twitter account suggesting that India has legalized the use of Bitcoin under the Legal Tender. However, the reality is that though the account is an official Twitter account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yet the news hasn’t been authorized by him, and instead, the account has been breached and taken control of by crypto hackers, clarified Indian Government and news channels.
On 11th December 2021, hackers successfully breached into a high profile Twitter account which belonged to the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. It was reported in the local Indian news channels that the official account of PM Modi was compromised. From the breached account, posts regarding Bitcoin were also sent which were clarified by PM Modi that he hadn’t authorized any of them.
The tweet messages suggested that a legal tender has been awarded by the Indian Government officially to Bitcoin. The message from the hacked Twitter account further claimed that the Indian Government had utilized state funds for securing 500 Bitcoins. These Bitcoins will be divided into fractions of Bitcoins which fractions will then be given to the Indian public.
It was further seen that the message comprised a website address as well which suggested a giveaway scheme of Bitcoin being active. It has now been confirmed that the website address has successfully been dismantled. On the other hand, the Indian Government has further confirmed that the premier’s account has been restored. In addition, the tweet messages sent from the account unauthorized, too have been deleted subsequently.
A confirmation of the hack occurrence was also re-affirmed from PM Modi’s official Twitter account. The message suggested that the account was hacked by unknown hackers for a short period of time. The account of Modi further informed that when the account was hacked, Government officials contacted Twitter’s technical team for assistance. The matter was resolved through the assistance of Twitter’s team, suggested PM Modi’s tweet message.
This is for the second time at least that the account of PM Modi had been breached and unauthorized posts were sent. The last time it was hacked was some 5 months ago i.e. in June 2021. At that time, there were several accounts of Twitter belonging to various world leaders that were hacked. For instance, South African and Nigerian premiers’ Twitter handlers were compromised and similar types of tweets were published. However, with the indulging of the Twitter team, the accounts were taken aback and restored in their original form.
PM Modi has this time instructed law enforcement agencies to find out who were the culprits behind the hacking. He has given clear orders that full-fledged inquiry should be initiated and if the hackers were Indians, then they shouldn’t be spared at all.
