Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter handle was briefly hacked in the early hours of Sunday, during which a tweet was put out promoting bitcoin and cryptocurrency in India.
The account was restored soon and the tweet removed, with the Prime Minister's Office stating on 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."
The tweet posted from the account while it was 'briefly compromised' falsely claimed that India has adopted bitcoin as legal tender, and that the government will distribute 500 BTC to residents of the country.
"India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender. The government has officially bought 500 BTC and is distributing them to all residents of the country. The future has come today," the tweet read.
It also provided a link to a cryptocurrency blogpost page. However, BOOM was unable to find an existing page with such a link.
This comes weeks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had stated in the Parliament that the government had no proposal to recognise bitcoin as a currency in India.
Also Read: No Proposal To Recognise Bitcoin As A Currency: Govt To Lok Sabha
This is not the first time that Modi's account was hacked, and posts regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrency was made.
In September 2020, another verified Twitter account of Modi was hacked in a similar manner. It had posted, "I appeal to you all to donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19, Now India begin with crypto currency, Kindly Donate eth to 0xae073DB1e5752faFF169B1ede7E8E94bF7f80Be6."
In another post, the hacker tweeted from the account, "Yes this account is hacked by John Wick (hckindia@tutanota.com), We have not hacked Paytm Mall (sic)."
In the last year over 130 high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked to promote a bitcoin scam. Hacked accounts include that of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Apple, among others.