Army’s Twitter account hacked... to promote NFTs
HACKERS yesterday hijacked the British Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts to promote NFTs and cryptocurrencies.
The 362,000 followers of the army’s verified Twitter account were flooded with content promoting giveaways ad competitions to win NFTs from around 1pm.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique computer files that act as a digital certificate of ownership for anything from a song to a work of art. The hack is embarrassing for the Ministry of Defence, which has boasted of its ability to defend itself against, as well as carry out, cyber attacks. As of last night, no one had yet claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The account name changed several times, with new profile pictures including a cartoon robot and an ape with face paint similar to that of Batman villain The Joker.
The name of its YouTube account, which has amassed over 55million views, was changed to ‘Ark Invest’, the name of a billiondollar US investment management firm. Four videos were uploaded promoting a live interview with Tesla founder Elon Musk about cryptocurrency, watched at its peak by over 17,000 people.
Professor Alan Woodward, from the University of Surrey, said the hack could easily have been prevented by security measures, adding: ‘It’s not unusual to see these hacks done by people pumping crypto schemes.
‘I suspect this is for financial gain and not some nation state attack, but never say never.’ An Army spokesman said it was investigating the breach, adding: ‘We take information security extremely seriously and are resolving the issue.’