The British Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts were hacked to promote crypto fraud
A screenshot of the British Army’s Twitter profile when it was hacked, via Wayback Machine. The profile and banner images were changed to look like a non-functional token collection called “The Possessed.”
A hacker compromised the social media accounts of the British army to push people against cryptocurrency fraud.
The army’s Twitter and YouTube profiles were taken over by the hacker, or hackers – whose identities are not yet known – on Sunday. The name of the Twitter account was changed to “pssssd”, and the profile and banner images were changed to look like a non-functional token collection called “The Possessed.”
The Possessed’s official Twitter account warned users about a “new verified SCAM account” that mimicked the collection of NFTs – tokens representing ownership of parts of web content.
Earlier Sunday, the account was renamed “Bapesclan” – the name of another NFT collection – while the banner image was changed to a cartoon monkey with clown makeup on. The hacker also began retweeting posts that promoted NFT distribution schemes.
Bapesclan did not immediately respond to a direct message from CNBC on Twitter.
The name of the British military’s YouTube account was meanwhile changed to “Ark Invest”, the investment company of Tesla and the bitcoin bull Cathie Wood.
The hacker deleted all the account’s videos and replaced them with livestreams of old clips taken from a conversation with Elon Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on bitcoin hosted by Ark in July 2021. Text was added to the livestreams leading users to crypto-fraud sites .
Both accounts have since been returned to their rightful owner.
– The breach of the army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that happened earlier today has been solved and an investigation is underway, the British Ministry of Defense 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 British Army’s account “was compromised and has since been locked and secured.”
“The account holders have now been given access again and the account is running again,” the spokesman told CNBC via email.
A YouTube representative was not immediately available for comment when CNBC reached it.
Tobias Ellwood, a British Conservative lawmaker who heads the House Defense Committee, said the breach “looks serious”.
“I hope the results of the investigation and the measures taken will be shared appropriately.”
This is not the first time a high-profile social media account has been used by hackers to promote crypto fraud. In 2020, the Twitter accounts of Musk, President Joe Biden and many others were taken over to scam their followers into bitcoin.
– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report
