PM Modi’s Twitter handle was briefly compromised, matter escalated: PMO

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s Twitter handle was briefly compromised, his office tweeted, adding that the matter has been escalated to the social media company. 

“The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured.”

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“In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored,” PMO tweeted. 

After being hacked early hours on Sunday, the account was restored shortly. A tweet promoting cryptocurrency, now deleted, was shared from the Prime Minister’s account. 

The deleted tweet read: “India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender. The government has officially bought 500 BTC and is distributing them to all residents of the country.”

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Social media users soon after the tweet was posted asked if the ‘PM’s account was hacked?’

“PMs twitter hacked!? Twitter needs to up its security game,” a Twitter user said. 

“This is quite shocking and serious,” another one tweeted. 

This was not the first time, PM Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was compromised. In 2020, a series of tweets asking his followers to donate in a Bitcoin account was posted from @narendramodi_in. 

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 The tweet 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 Bitcoin…” 

Minutes later, another tweet said, “Yes this account is hacked by John Wick (hckindia@tutanota.com), We have not hacked Paytm Mall.”

A Twitter spokesperson had then said, “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.”