Multiple Indian Official Twitter Accounts Hacked, NFT Content Posted

Accounts of a high-profile state chief minister, political parties and government institutions were compromised.

Apr 11, 2022 at 9:19 a.m. UTC

Updated Apr 11, 2022 at 3:37 p.m. UTC

Amitoj Singh is CoinDesk's regulatory reporter covering India. He holds BTC and ETH below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Follow @amitoj on Twitter

Multiple Indian political and governmental entities had their Twitter (TWTR) accounts compromised over the past three days, with non-fungible token-related content posted on their feeds.

The list includes both the government of Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state, and the office of its chief minister, Yogi Adityanath. Also hit were the Punjab National Congress – the main opposition party in the northern state of Punjab – the University Grants Commission and the Meteorological Department.
The chief minister's office was compromised on Saturday. The profile picture was replaced with a "bored ape," hundreds of tweets were posted and old tweets deleted.
The account was restored and a case was registered in connection with the matter at the Cyber Crime police station in the state capital of Lucknow, according to tweets by the state government's official Twitter account.

On Monday, the state government's account was hacked. The perpetrators tweeted a link to the "beanz army" website.

A similar post appeared on the Punjab Congress Twitter handle.
The linked website contained a statement saying "We have decided to give back to our community by distributing extra airdrop claims to holders of Azuki and other NFTs. Claim your airdrop of BEANZ and become involved with the Azuki ecosystem using the interactive Azuki NFT."
All Twitter accounts compromised have been restored.

Read more about

Hack Twitter Politics India Airdrops

DISCLOSURE

Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.

The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.