The Twitter accounts of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank (a local bank that supports women micro-entrepreneurs) were hacked on Sunday, January 2. The bad actors renamed the nickname “Elon Musk” and started a cryptocurrency scam.
The Most Recent Attacks
After carrying out the cyber outbreak, the perpetrators posted many tweets promoting cryptocurrencies. They also changed the name and the profile picture of the Indian Medical Association account with Tesla’s CEO – Elon Musk.
The bad actors have shared several tweets claiming to be the business mogul himself and have continually replied to posts under his name.
Experts believe the hacking could be a result of the password being compromised or a malicious link being clicked by the account users.
The Indian World Affairs Council (ICWA), whose ex officio chairman is India’s vice-chairman Venkaiah Naidu, quickly resolved the issue. However, malicious tweets are still visible on the other two accounts.
Last month, a similar attack compromised the official Twitter address of the Prime Minister of the country – Narendra Modi. While under the control of the perpetrators, the account published a post of a bitcoin giveaway scam.
The malicious tweet said that the second most populous nation has officially adopted the major cryptocurrency as legal tender. In addition, it was stated that the government bought 500 BTC and “is bothering them to all residents of the country”.
Twitter and YouTube Attacks Lately
This isn’t the first time the Twitter accounts of well-known organizations or prominent figures have been compromised.
In 2020, cybercriminals hacked into accounts belonging to Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and several executives in the crypto industry.
Similar to previous attacks of this type, the perpetrators posted a scam from the name of the hacked individuals asking people to send bitcoin to a certain address. Moreover, they promised to double all BTC funds in a too-good-to-be-true move.
Twitter is not the only platform under attack from cybercriminals. Not long ago, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak took legal action against YouTube after numerous scams with his involvement. Specifically, the bad actors masqueraded as the tech entrepreneur and promoted bogus bitcoin giveaways on the video platform, which targeted countless victims.
Despite his efforts, Wozniak lost the case as, according to Santa Clara Country Superior Court Judge Sunil Kulkarni, his arguments were not strong enough.
