IMA Twitter Accounts Hacked

Jan 04,2024
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The Twitter accounts of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Mann Deshi Mahila Bank (a microfinance bank), and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) were addressed on 2 January. The incident comes weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was addressed.

According to India Today, the hackers renamed the handles “Elon Musk”. Several tweets promoting cryptocurrency were posted on the accounts, which indeed re-shared several of Musk’s tweets. While the ICWA’s Twitter account was recovered, the vicious tweets were still visible on the IMA and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank’s Twitter handles.

As per an India Moment report, the accounts could have been addressed due to vicious links being clicked by the instructors of the account of the word being compromised.

The IT security group of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, CERT-IN, is looking into the hacking of the accounts.

The ICWA, which has the Vice-President as ex-officio chairman, is an “Institute of National Importance".

The incident comes after PM Modi’s account “was veritably compactly compromised” on 12 December last time. The account posted a tweet claiming that India had espoused bitcoin as legal tender and also claimed that the country had brought 500 BTC and was going to distribute it among residers.

The Prime Minister’s Office latterly said that after the matter was escalated to Twitter, the account was secured. The incident also urged several Opposition leaders to express their enterprises, adding that Modi’s account being compromised reflects gaps in the country’s cyber security. Following the hacking, politicians also questioned if the Aadhaar data of citizens were safe.

A Twitter prophet told ANI that the social media mammoth’s inquiry revealed that there were no signs of other impacted accounts at that time.

In July 2021, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen's (AIMIM) sanctioned Twitter account was also addressed. The name of the handle was altered to Elon Musk and the profile picture was changed to an image of the Tesla CEO.