Screenshots of the British Army’s Twitter profile when hacked via the Wayback Machine. Its profile and banner photos have been modified to resemble a non-fungible token collection called “The Possessed”.
Hackers have breached British Army social media accounts and forced people into cryptocurrency fraud.
Of the army twitter When YouTube On Sunday, the profile was hijacked by a hacker, or hacker (whose identity is not yet known). The Twitter account has been renamed to “pssssd” and its profile and banner image have been changed to resemble a non-fungible token collection called “The Possessed”.
Possessed’s official Twitter account warned users about “newly validated SCAM accounts” impersonating NFT collections (tokens representing ownership of online content).
Last Sunday, the account was renamed to “Bapesclan” (another NFT collection name) and the banner image was renamed to a cartoon ape with clown makeup. Hackers have also begun to retweet posts promoting NFT gift schemes.
Bapesclan did not immediately respond to Twitter’s CNBC direct message.
Meanwhile, the name of the British military YouTube account has been changed to “Ark Invest”, an investment company. Tesla When Bitcoin Bull Cathie Wood.
Hackers deleted all the videos in their account and replaced them with a live stream of old clips taken from a conversation with Elon Musk And Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey With Bitcoin hosted by Ark in July 2021. The text was added to the live stream, directing the user to a crypto fraud website.
Both accounts were then returned to the legitimate owner.
“The Army’s Twitter and YouTube account breaches that occurred earlier today have been resolved and investigations are underway,” the British Ministry of Defense tweeted on Monday.
“The Army takes information security very seriously and it is inappropriate to comment further until the investigation is complete.”
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the British Army account was “locked and protected since it was compromised.”
“Account owners have regained access and their accounts have been restored and are up and running,” a spokesman told CNBC in an email.
When CNBC contacted me, the YouTube representative wasn’t able to get immediate comments.
The breach “looks serious,” said Tobias Ellwood, a British Conservative member who chairs Parliamentary Defense Commission.
“We hope that the results of the investigation and the measures taken will be shared appropriately.”
This isn’t the first time a well-known social media account has been abused by hackers to promote crypto fraud. In 2020, Mask, President Joe Biden, and many other Twitter accounts Taken over To deceive Bitcoin followers.
— — CNBC’s Lora Korodny contributed to this report
