A Twitter account connected to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared to have been hacked Thursday, prompting an investigation by the social media company.
© Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends a ceremony to thank the Union Council of Ministers for their contribution in India’s general election at BJP headquarters in New Delhi on May 21, 2019.
For nearly an hour, the verified account — @narendramodi_in — posted several tweets asking people to donate Bitcoin to another account.
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“Yes this account is hacked by John Wick,” one tweet read in part, seemingly a reference to the action movie character played by Keanu Reeves.
“I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with crypto currency,” another tweet read.
All the tweets have since been deleted.
The Modi account, which has 2.5 million followers, is one of a handful of verified accounts connected to the prime minister. The one that was part of the apparent hack is connected to his personal website.
Twitter told CNN Business that it was “aware of this activity and have taken steps to secure the compromised account.”
“We are actively investigating the situation,” a Twitter spokesperson said.
India’s Ministry of Information Technology did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The apparent hack comes more than a month after a massive hack that resulted in some of the most prominent accounts on the platform — including those tied to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk — being compromised.
In that case, Twitter said hackers targeted workers who had administrative privileges and then used their access to internal controls to send out tweets promoting a Bitcoin scam.
The origin of the attack on Modi’s account is not yet clear. There’s no indication or evidence of any correlation between this hack and July’s incident, according to Twitter.