Twitter took “necessary steps to secure” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal Twitter handle after it was “very briefly compromised,” a spokesperson of the company said on Sunday.
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,” the Twitter spokesperson said.
“Our investigation has revealed that there are no signs of any other impacted accounts at this time,” the spokesperson added.
PM Modi’s Twitter handle was briefly hacked on Sunday, and a tweet claiming that India has “officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender” was posted. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) later said the account was immediately secured after the matter was escalated to Twitter.
“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,” it said.
The screenshots of the tweet, after Modi’s personal handle was hacked, was shared by several users, which claimed: “India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender”.
“As per our investigation to date, it appears that the account was not compromised due to any breach of Twitter’s systems,” Twitter said.
The government is likely to introduce a bill on cryptocurrencies and has expressed concerns they may be used to lure investors with misleading claims and to fund terror activities.
It was not immediately known how long PM Modi’s personal Twitter handle, which has more than 73 million followers, was compromised.