Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal Twitter account was "briefly compromised", his office said on Saturday, after the account shared a scam link promising a bitcoin giveaway, NDTV reported.
"The Twitter handle of PM Narendra Modi 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," PMO India tweeted.
The account has now been restored and the malicious tweets have been deleted.
Screenshots shared on Twitter by several users earlier showed tweets put out from Modi's official account which read, "India has officially accepted bitcoin as legal tender. The government has officially bought 500 BTC and distributing them to all residents of the country." Along with the tweet, a possible scam link was also attached.
Modi is very active on Twitter and has even posted in Hebrew in the past. For example, in 2015, India’s Prime Minister congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu on his victory in the Israeli elections - in both Hebrew and English.
In 2018, Modi issued a personal greeting in Hebrew to Netanyahu in honor of the Hanukkah holiday.
In 2020, hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of more than half a dozen high-profile accounts, including Joe Biden, billionaire Bill Gates, and rapper Kanye West, among others. The hackers then tried to solicit bitcoin donations from users.