Twitter says 'took steps' to secure Modi's account after early-morning hack

Handle secured immediately; Indian crypto platforms say no significant fluctuation in prices recorded after mischievous tweet

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account (@narendramodi) was hacked in the wee hours of Sunday, but secured soon after the incident.

At 2:11 am, the hacker put out a tweet from Modi’s personal Twitter account that said India had adopted bitcoin as legal tender. The mischievous tweet also said India had bought 500 units of bitcoin, which would be distributed to the country’s residents and put out a link promising a bitcoin giveaway.

The account was soon secured and the tweet deleted.

“The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured. In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored,” the official Twitter handle of the Prime Minister’s Office (@PMOIndia) tweeted at 3:18 am Indian Standard Time (IST).

A Twitter spokesperson said, “We have 24X7 open lines of communication with the PM’s Office and our teams took necessary steps to secure the compromised account as soon as we became aware of this activity. Our investigation has revealed that there are no signs of any other impacted accounts at this time.”

The social media company's investigation into the hack till now shows that the account was not compromised due to any breach of Twitter’s systems, said a source close to the developments.

Bitcoin, which has been on a downslide in the last 10 days with the crypto asset’s price dropping below $50,000 for the first time since May, recorded an upward jump soon after the tweet was put out. The price of bitcoin shot up by $100 from about $48,700 at 2:09 am, when the mischievous tweet was shared from the Prime Minister’s account, to over $48,800 at 3:30 am, according to CoinMarketCap data. 

Nischal Shetty, CEO and founder of crypto exchange WazirX, however, said that there were no large fluctuations of bitcoin prices or unusual trading volume on the platform in the aftermath of the hack. “A rise of $100 is a normal fluctuation in terms of crypto prices, and I don’t think it was a consequence of what was tweeted as a result of the hack. The reaction time (for traders) was very less as the tweet was immediately deleted,” said Shetty.

A spokesperson for crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber also said that the platform did not see any significant impact in prices due to the tweet.

Getting past two-factor authentication

Saket Modi, CEO and co-founder of cybersecurity company Safe Security, said that the technical reason behind the hack was not clear as yet. “It is not as though the two-factor authentication system cannot be compromised. A hacker might also get access by impersonating a session or cookies attached to a particular online account.”

Two-factor authentication is an additional security layer that increases the barriers for a hacker trying to gain access to a person’s online accounts. Once this feature is enabled on Twitter, users would need their password, along with a secondary login method —either a code, a login confirmation via an app, or a physical security key — to log into the account. 

According to the cybersecurity expert, it is possible that the mischief-makers behind the hack of Prime Minister Modi’s Twitter account might have been part of a hacktivist group trying to make a political point. It could also be that the hackers sought to capitalise on the fluctuations in crypto prices and make money.

In July 2020, hacking had compromised dozens of Twitter accounts and allegedly netted more than $118,000 worth of bitcoin. The accounts included those of the current US President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, reality TV star Kim Kardashian and Ye, the rapper once known as Kanye West.

Graham Ivan Clark, the accused teenage mastermind of that episode of Twitter hacking, pleaded guilty in March this year in a Florida state court and agreed to serve three years in a juvenile prison.