Twitter confirms account of India PM Modi's personal website hacked
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets officers as he arrives to attend Independence Day celebrations at the historic Red Fort in Delhi, India, August 15, 2020. PHOTO: REUTERS
Twitter confirmed on Thursday that an account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website was hacked with a series of tweets asking its followers to donate to a relief fund through cryptocurrency.
The incident comes after several Twitter accounts of prominent personalities were hacked in July.
Twitter said it was aware of the activity with Modi’s website account and has taken steps to secure it.
“We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted,” a Twitter spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Modi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the tweets posted on the account @narendramodi_in.
The account, with over 2.5 million followers, is the official Twitter handle for Modi's personal website (www.narendramodi.in/) and the Narendra Modi mobile application.
Modi’s personal Twitter account, which was unaffected by this incident, has over 61 million followers.
The tweets, which have since been taken down, asked the followers to donate to the PM National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.
Hackers had in July accessed Twitter’s internal systems to hijack some of the platform’s top voices including U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, former U.S. President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk, and used them to solicit digital currency.