Twitter confirms PM Modi’s website page hacked, says ‘investigating’

[MenInG]

Microblogging site Twitter on Thursday confirmed that a page which is linked to an account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website was hacked. While it did not specify the details of the hacking, a report by news agency Reuters said a series of tweets asking followers of the page to donate to a relief fund through cryptocurrency were put out.

To a query from Hindustan Times, a spokesperson from Twitter in an email 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.”

Questions to the Prime Minister’s Office about the alleged hacking did not elicit a response till the time of filing this copy.

Persons aware of the details, however, said there is no indication or evidence at this stage of any correlation between this account compromise and the incident that took place in July, where hackers after accessing Twitter’s internal systems solicited digital currency from the accounts of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and former US president Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk.

Screenshots of the alleged hacking, circulating on Twitter, claimed that the breach was carried out by a hacker claiming to be John Wick.

The page [MENTION=140582]Naren[/MENTION]dramodi_in is followed by 2.5 million users and is a platform for disseminating news about the PM’s activities, his statements and addresses.

News report about the hacking generated a buzz on social media; with some users expressing concerns about the lax security features of social media sites while others posted memes about the incident.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...page-hacked/story-5BsSts5UVF4bqHNeklBUYO.html

 

[Bhaijaan]

Twitter must apologize for this and promise to make adequate arrangements to protect profile of our dear PM.

 

[sweep_shot]

Never found Twitter safe.

Never a good idea to have too many information on Twitter.

 

[MenInG]

Hackers who hijacked the personal Twitter account of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi have told Sky News they did so after compromising his personal website.

Tweets from Mr Modi's account solicited cryptocurrency donations in both Bitcoin and Ethereum, although blockchain records suggest the attempted fraud was unsuccessful.

It follows a similar cryptocurrency fraud on Twitter in July in which hackers were able to access a number of high-profile celebrities' accounts to defraud their followers of more than $117,000 (£90,000).

Three men, including a British teenager, have been arrested and charged in connection with that incident.

Screenshots taken by the hackers who took control of Mr Modi's account appear to show they had access to administrative panels for his website, although these images could not be confirmed.

They also appeared to show a number of directories used for Mr Modi's personal app, but unlike the hackers in the July incident, the hackers did not access to Twitter's own systems.

Mr Modi's personal site, app, and Twitter account are not administered by the Indian government but instead by his team. Sky News was unable to contact the team for comment.

Twitter said it had taken steps to secure the compromised account and was investigating the incident, which only appeared to impact Mr Modi's account.

According to the hackers, the hijacking was in response to "false reports" tying them to an alleged security breach of Indian e-commerce site Paytm Mall, which they denied being connected to.

A small US-based information security company called Cyble had claimed Paytm Group had suffered a "massive data breach" and was being held to ransom by an organisation which referred to itself as "John Wick", although Cyble acknowledged the breach was unverified.

Paytm Mall itself denied that it suffered any security breaches, telling The Hindu newspaper that an investigation did not turn up any evidence to support the claims.

Corresponding with Sky News from an email address included in a hijacked tweet, the hackers - who referred to themselves using both singular and plural personal pronouns - said they were "illegal bug bounty hunters".

In poor English, they wrote: "Recently fake news of our name saying paytm mall hacked by us, So we have sent email to all news publishers in India its not us, no one replied, so we decided to post something."

Despite the attempted fraud, the hackers claimed they had no other intentions in hijacking Mr Modi's account - before claiming they had deleted some databases from his personal site.

"We have taken backup if they have backup then no issues, else they have to reach me," they claimed, without providing any evidence.

It is unclear whether personal information was stored in these databases and whether the hackers intend to extort Mr Modi for the return of this information.


https://news.sky.com/story/hackers-...-account-after-breaching-his-website-12062688

 

[JaDed]

Are they going to play Modiji is so good everyone is attacking him narrative now ..

 

[Bhaijaan]

Apparently it was done by John Wick

 

[sweep_shot]

Apparently it was done by John Wick

Could be a plot for John Wick 4.

Jokes aside, interesting choice of nickname.

 

[Syed1]

You never know it was Modi himself trying to make some extra money on the side. Can only make so much in kickbacks from 36 Rafales

 

[MenInG]

Saudi diplomats, Sikh separatists and Indian business executives have been among those targeted by a group of hired hackers, according to research published on Wednesday by software firm BlackBerry Corp.

The report on the group, known publicly as Bahamut, the name assigned to the mythical sea monster of Arab lore, highlights how cybersecurity researchers are increasingly finding evidence of mercenaries online.

BlackBerry’s vice president of research, Eric Milam, said the diversity of Bahamut’s activities was such that he assumed it was working for a range of different clients.

“There’s too many different things going on across too many different ranges and too many different verticals that it would be a single state,” Milam said ahead of the report’s release.

In June, Reuters news agency reported on how an obscure Indian IT firm called BellTroX offered its hacking services to help clients spy on more than 10,000 email accounts over seven years, including targeting prominent American investors.

BlackBerry – which absorbed antivirus firm Cylance in 2019 – stitched together digital clues left by other researchers over the years to create a picture of a sophisticated group of hackers. BlackBerry also linked the group to mobile phone applications in the Apple and Google app stores. Those apps, which included a fitness tracker and password manager, may have helped the hackers track their targets, the report said.


Apple declined to comment on the record. Two of the apps flagged by BlackBerry are no longer in the Apple App Store, however. A Google spokesman said all the apps in the Google Play store mentioned in the report had been removed.

Milam declined to comment on who he thought might be behind Bahamut, but he said he hoped the report would help to sharpen the focus on hackers for hire. Taha Karim, the chief executive of Emirati cybersecurity company tephracore – who wasn’t involved in BlackBerry’s research but reviewed the report ahead of publication – said the findings were credible and “they found links that aren’t obvious.”

The targets
BlackBerry did not name any of Bahamut’s targets directly, but researchers have previously publicly identified Middle Eastern human rights activists, Pakistani military officials, and Gulf Arab businessmen as being in the group’s crosshairs. Reuters news was also able to identify new targets by cross-referencing data published in BlackBerry’s report with booby-trapped webpages preserved by urlscan.io, a cybersecurity tool.

One heavily targeted organisation included the New York-based Sikhs for Justice, a separatist group that is campaigning for an independent homeland for Sikhs in India. Its founder, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, said his campaign websites have been repeatedly hacked and his emails broken into.

Others pursued by the hackers included: The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Defense, its Supreme Council for National Security, and Shaima Gargash, the UAE’s number-two diplomat in Washington.

In an email, Gargash said the embassy had no comment.

Saudi officials were also targeted by the hackers. Cached phishing pages preserved by services such as URLscan.io and reviewed by Reuters showed that the cyber spies targeted Mawthouq, the Saudi government’s email service, half a dozen Saudi government ministries, and the Saudi Center for International Strategic Partnerships, a Riyadh-based body aimed at helping coordinate the country’s foreign policy.

The Saudi embassy in Washington, DC did not respond to requests for comment.

The hackers pursued royals and business executives in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. In August 2019, they attempted to compromise an employee of major Indian energy conglomerate Reliance Industries around the time that the company was negotiating the sale of a stake in its oil-to-chemicals business to Saudi Aramco.

Reliance did not return repeated messages. Attempts to reach the hackers were unsuccessful.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/7/mercenary-hacker-group-widespread-in-mideast-research-finds

 

[MenInG]

Microblogging website Twitter on Sunday issued a clarification after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handle was compromised briefly. The social media platform said it sprung into action as soon as it found about the hack. It further said that no other accounts were found to be compromised in its subsequent security checks.

"WIWe 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 Twitter spokesperson said today.

The official handle of Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued a statement informing that prime minister’s Twitter account [MENTION=140582]Naren[/MENTION]dramodi was “very briefly compromised” and the matter was flagged to the platform as well.

The Twitter handle of PM [MENTION=140582]Naren[/MENTION]dramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured.

“The Twitter handle of PM [MENTION=140582]Naren[/MENTION]dramodi 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,” said PMO.

The account was secured after the incident and the malicious tweets were deleted. As per unverified screenshots shared on the internet, the malicious tweet, later deleted, said “India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender”. This is not false as India has introduced a bill proposing to ban all private cryptocurrencies in the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament. It is yet to be taken up for discussion.

"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," read the now-deleted malicious tweet.

It is unclear which group or individual was behind the recent attack. A similar hack in September 2020 compromised the Twitter account which issued updates from PM Modi’s personal website and mobile apps.

PM’s Twitter account [MENTION=140582]Naren[/MENTION]dramodi has 73.4 million followers.

https://www.timesnownews.com/busine...-hack-says-took-steps-to-secure-handle/839827