The British Ministry of Defense suffered a hack of its Twitter and YouTube accounts. For a few hours, they were used to promote cryptocurrency scams.
The British Army’s Facebook and Twitter accounts have been hacked and used to promote cryptocurrency scams, the British Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday July 3, 2022. “We are aware of a breach of the military’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is ongoing.the entity said on social media. The military takes information security very seriously and we are in the process of solving the problem.”.
The hackers used the accounts to promote cryptocurrency-related scams. On the Twitter page, the attackers changed the organization’s profile picture, bio, and cover photo to make it look like it was associated with a famous collection of NFTs. They then promoted it, and the pinned tweet obviously linked to a fake NFT creation website.
We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway.
The Army takes information security extremely seriously and is resolving the issue. Until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.
— Ministry of Defense Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) July 3, 2022
On YouTube, the information identifying the account has also been deleted and replaced by others reminiscent of the company Ark Invest. The army videos have been erased and replaced by extracts from Ark Invest conferences, notably featuring Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk.
For now, no one knows if this scheme has managed to deceive users. Twitter, via a spokesperson, simply said the issue had been resolved and the account credentials had been returned to their rightful owners. Hacking large audience verified accounts is a common technique for promoting cryptocurrency scams. Recently, the FBI warned of the proliferation of these scams on the professional social network LinkedIn.