Cyber criminals hacked into the official Twitter and YouTube accounts of the British Army on Sunday and posted notices promoting a cryptocurrency scam.
The hackers changed the Twitter account’s name to “psssd” and the profile and banner photos were changed to an image meant to depict “The Possessed,” which is a non-fungible token collection.
The official Twitter account of The Possessed then warned of a “new verified SCAM account” which was meant to impersonate the NFT collection, according to CNBC.
NFTs are effectively digital certificates of authenticity backed by blockchain technology that can be attached to digital art or pretty much anything else that comes in digital form, such as audio files, video clips, or animated stickers.
Earlier on Sunday, hackers renamed the account “Bapesclan,” which is another NFT collection whose logo is a cartoon ape that wears clown makeup.
The banner image was altered to reflect the logo. The hackers also began retweeting posts promoting NFT schemes.
Over at YouTube, the British Army’s official account was renamed “Ark Invest,” which is the firm founded and headed up by famed investor Cathie Wood.
Wood is known as an enthusiastic promoter of bitcoin as well as Tesla.
The hacker also deleted all of the account’s videos. Instead, they uploaded clips showing interviews with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Both the Twitter and YouTube accounts have been restored to the British Army.
The British Ministry of Defense confirmed the hacks on Monday.
“The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway,” the ministry tweeted on Monday.
“The Army takes information security extremely seriously and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the account “was compromised and has since been locked and secured.”
“The account holders have now regained access and the account is back up and running.”
The Post has sought comment from Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company.
British lawmakers reacted with alarm over the breach on Monday.
“This looks serious,” tweeted Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood.
“I hope the results of the investigation and actions taken will be shared appropriately.”
Hackers pushing cryptocurrency scams have in years past taken over accounts of other high-profile figures such as Elon Musk and President Biden.
Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our Twitter, & Facebook
We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.
For all the latest Technology News Click Here
