Twitter Account Of PM Narendra Modi's Personal Website Hacked

The verified Twitter account, linked to PM Modi's website and mobile app, has over 2.5 million followers and was reportedly hacked around 3 am on Thursday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (File Photo/ AFP)

New Delhi: The Twitter account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website was hacked as several cryptic tweets were posted from the handle on Thursday morning. The verified Twitter account, linked to PM Modi's website and mobile app, has over 2.5 million followers and was reportedly hacked around 3 am on Thursday. In a series of tweets related to bitcoin, the message posted on the Twitter handle read: "I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with crypto currency, Kindly Donate eth to 0xae073DB1e5752faFF169B1ede7E8E94bF7f80Be6," read another tweet. In another tweet, the hacker(s) wrote: "This account is hacked by John Wick (hckindia@tutanota.com), We have not hacked Paytm Mall." The bogus tweets, however, has now been taken down. Even the micro-blogging site confirmed that the website linked to PM Modi's personal website was hacked and has taken required steps to secure the compromised account. "We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted," news agency Reuters quoted an official spokesperson of Twitter as saying in an email statement. In August, a cybersecurity firm had claimed that the same hacker group 'John Wick' was behind the massive data breach at Paytm Mall, the e-commerce arm of Paytm. According to reports, the hacker group had also demanded ransom, as it claimed to have unrestricted access to users' database. Paytm, however, said that it had found no data breach and that is database is completely secure. In a similar incident, Twitter accounts of some global leaders and businessmen including US presidential candidate Joe Biden, former US President Barack Obama and billionaire business tycoon Elon Muskwere hacked in July this year. As per reports, the hackers had accessed Twitter’s internal systems to hijack some of the website’s top verified profiles. Even the Twitter handles of conglomerates such as Uber and Apple were also compromised in the breach.