The British Army’s YouTube and Twitter accounts were hacked to promote crypto fraud

Both the British Army’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were hacked and used to promote cryptocurrency fraud, the British Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday. It is unclear when exactly hackers took over the two accounts, but both seem to be back to normal now.

“We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway,” said the Ministry of Defense’s press office. said on Twitter. “The military takes information security extremely seriously and solves the problem.”

Hackers hijacked the British Army’s Twitter page, replacing the organization’s profile picture, biography and cover photo to make it appear as it was associated with The Possessed NFT collection. The account sent out various retweets for NFT handouts, and its pinned tweet linked users to a fake NFT coin site.

Bad actors also stripped the British Army’s YouTube channel, deleted all the videos, and changed their name and profile picture to look like the legitimate investment company Ark Invest. Hackers replaced the British Army’s videos with a series of old livestreams with former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and Tesla boss Elon Musk. These livestreams were previously aired as part of The B Word conference hosted by Ark Invest in June last year, but hackers added a premise that encouraged users to engage in a crypto scam. The channel broadcast four livestreams simultaneously, with some of them gaining thousands of viewers.

As Web3 is just fine blogger Molly White points out that the scammers who took over the British Army’s accounts carried out their scheme using some of the same tactics used in recent times. In March, hackers took over the Twitter account belonging to MKLeo, one of the best in the world Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players, and used it to trade fake NFTs made to look like they were associated with The Possessed. Just two months after the incident, fraudsters managed to steal $ 1.3 million using the same Ark Invest live streams used for this hack.

It told Twitter spokesperson Rocio Vives The Verge that the British Army’s Twitter account “the site has been locked and secured”, and that “account holders have now gained access again and the account is running again”. Google did not respond immediately The Vergehis request for comment.