Indian Prime Minister Twitter Hacked

Notice: This page is a new case study and some aspects have not been fully researched. Some sections may be incomplete or reflect inaccuracies present in initial sources. Please check the References at the bottom for further information and perform your own additional assessment. Please feel free to contribute by adding any missing information or sources you come across. If you are new here, please read General Tutorial on Wikis or Anatomy of a Case Study for help getting started.

Notice: This page contains sources which are not attributed to any text. The unattributed sources follow the initial description. Please assist by visiting each source, reviewing the content, and placing that reference next to any text it can be used to support. Feel free to add any information that you come across which isn't present already. Sources which don't contain any relevant information can be removed. Broken links can be replaced with versions from the Internet Archive. See General Tutorial on Wikis, Anatomy of a Case Study, and/or Citing Your Sources Guide for additional information. Thanks for your help!

For a brief period in December 2021, the prime minister of India's Twitter account was breached and used to launch a bitcoin giveaway scam, claiming in the usual way that bitcoin would be given away to anyone who first sent a payment to a wallet set up for the event. This lasted for roughly an hour before the tweet was removed. It is unclear how many individuals fell for the scheme.

This exchange or platform is based in India, or the incident targeted people primarily in India.

About Prime Minister Modi

"In September [2021], El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender and last month, the country's president Nayib Bukele said he planned to build the world's first "Bitcoin City" — funded initially by Bitcoin-backed bonds."

"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi" "is a prolific tweeter and is the world's most popular incumbent politician on the platform, with more than 73 million followers on his main account."

"Earlier on Saturday, Modi spoke about cryptocurrencies at a virtual "Summit for Democracy" hosted by US President Joe Biden. In his address, he said that emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies should be used to empower democracy, not undermine it."

“By working together, democracies can meet the aspirations of our citizens and celebrate the democratic spirit of humanity.”

"We must also jointly shape global norms for emerging technologies like social media and cryptocurrencies so that they are used to empower democracy, not to undermine it," Modi said. A tweet appeared on the main @narendramodi handle which announced the Indian government had officially bought 500 bitcoin and was "distributing them to all residents of the country".

India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender.

The government has officially bought 500 BTC and is distributing them to all residents of the country.

Hurry up

The future has come today!

The Reality

"In late November, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament that the government had no plans of recognizing Bitcoin as a currency, adding that it did not collect data on domestic bitcoin transactions."

"Last month, Modi's government said that it was preparing to introduce a bill that would "prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India." But the description of the bill also says it would allow for "certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.""

"Modi himself said last month that cryptocurrencies could "spoil our youth" and the central bank has repeatedly warned they could pose "serious concerns on macroeconomic and financial stability"."

"The official Twitter account for India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, [had been] briefly taken over by hackers and used to promote a bitcoin giveaway scam." "Several Twitter users shared screenshots of the tweet put out from the Indian Prime Minister's personal twitter account, @narendramodi, when it was compromised, according to CNN's affiliate News-18."

What Happened

"A swiftly deleted tweet from his main @narendramodi handle said the Indian government had officially bought 500 bitcoin and was "and distributing them to all residents of the country", along with a scam link." "The fraudulent message in question said that India had declared bitcoin legal tender and was conducting a giveaway to celebrate the move."

Key Event Timeline - Indian Prime Minister Twitter Hacked

Date	Event	Description
December 11th, 2021 2:48:00 PM MST	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.
December 11th, 2021 10:00:38 PM MST	CoinTelegraph Article	CoinTelegraph reports that the official Twitter account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hacked, and the attackers used it to spread misleading information about Bitcoin. The hackers claimed that India had officially adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and that the government had bought 500 BTC to distribute to citizens. They included a link for people to sign up and claim their share of the BTC giveaway. However, this was the second time Modi's Twitter account was hacked for crypto scams, with a previous incident occurring in September 2020. The hacking incident coincides with ongoing discussions about the legality of cryptocurrencies in India's parliamentary sessions. Former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg clarified that the description of the crypto bill, which mentioned banning "private cryptocurrencies," was a mistake and a misinterpretation.

Technical Details

TBD

The scam directed users to the URL india-official.blogspot.com, which then provided them a link to visit the website URL india-transaction.blogspot.com.

Funds were to be sent to a special vanity address:

1EVENTcWt7SFpFfeeq9cWd5zrk7g3FGXPW

The official Twitter account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hacked, and the attackers used it to spread misleading information about Bitcoin. The hackers claimed that India had officially adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and that the government had bought 500 BTC to distribute to citizens. They included a link for people to sign up and claim their share of the BTC giveaway. However, this was the second time Modi's Twitter account was hacked for crypto scams, with a previous incident occurring in September 2020. The hacking incident coincides with ongoing discussions about the legality of cryptocurrencies in India's parliamentary sessions. Former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg clarified that the description of the crypto bill, which mentioned banning "private cryptocurrencies," was a mistake and a misinterpretation.

Total Amount Lost

1EVENTcWt7SFpFfeeq9cWd5zrk7g3FGXPW

The total amount lost is unknown.

Immediate Reactions

"No sooner had the hack been noticed than the government sprung into action, writing to Twitter about the incident and asking users to ignore the tweet." "About an hour later, another Tweet emerged from the official handle of the Prime Minister’s Office [PMO] clarifying that the PM’s Twitter account was restored after it was “very briefly compromised” and that the incident had been raised with the social networking firm." "The prime minister's office later said via its own Twitter account that Modi's account was "briefly compromised" and was later secured."

"The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured. In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored."

"Twitter did not specify the exact time at which Modi’s account was breached and when they were notified about the matter. In addition to that, there was no response with regards to the time taken to bring down the fake post, and if the social platform deploys any extra level of security standards for major public accounts such as those of political leaders, governments heads, and others."

"Sunday's hack ironically comes as India prepares to clamp down on a flourishing cryptocurrency trade with a new law likely to be introduced in parliament this month." "Details of the legislation remain unclear but the government has flagged a broad ban on private digital currencies."

Ultimate Outcome

TBD

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

Ongoing Developments

TBD

Individual Prevention Policies

Individuals need to be cautious and always question any unrealistic return being offered, even if it claims to be from your own government. Always check with multiple official sources.

Any time that you are promised any profit or benefit in exchange for an initial payment, smart contract approval, or deposit, pay special care as to whether the entity making that offer is trustworthy, actually who they say they are, and has the means to fulfill what they're promising. There are no magic algorithms providing guaranteed returns from trading or mining. Trading on average will lose money. Mining is expensive and complex. No one is going to immediately send back more than you sent them. NFT projects will rarely announce a surprise mint in only a single location. Are you fully prepared for the event your money is kept and nothing is delivered in return?

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Most people who have been around the cryptocurrency space long enough has encountered the giveaway scam, and knows what's happening. It's only new users who haven't seen it before. Increasing education can massively reduce the success of the scam, and an industry insurance fund can provide some assistance for victims.

Never take for granted the limited knowledge of users of your service and their tendency to skip past provided information. It is recommended to design a simple tutorial and quiz for new users which explains the basics of seed phrases, strong password generation, secure two-factor authentication, common fraud schemes, how ponzi schemes work, as well as other risks which are unique to the cryptocurrency space. This tutorial and quiz should ensure their understanding and be a standard part of the sign-up or download process which is difficult or impossible to skip.

Work with other industry platforms to set up a multi-signature wallet with private keys held separately by delegate signatories from seven prominent platforms and services within the industry. Establish requirements for contributions by all platforms and services, designed to be affordable for small platforms yet large enough to cover anticipated breach events. Any breach event can be brought forth by a member platform or a petition of 100 signatures for consideration by the delegate signatories. A vote of 4 or more delegate signatures is required to release any funds, which could partially or fully restore lost funds based on their assessment.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

Most people who have been around the cryptocurrency space long enough has encountered the giveaway scam, and knows what's happening. It's only new users who haven't seen it before. Increasing education can massively reduce the success of the scam, and an industry insurance fund can provide some assistance for victims.

Create a standard tutorial and quiz for all new cryptocurrency participants, which is required to be completed once per participant. This tutorial and quiz should cover the basics of proper seed phrase protection, strong password generation, secure two-factor authentication, common fraud schemes, how to detect and guard against phishing attacks, how ponzi schemes work, as well as other risks which are unique to the cryptocurrency space.

Set up a multi-signature wallet with private keys held separately by delegate signatories from seven prominent platforms and services within the industry. Establish requirements for contributions by all platforms and services within the country, designed to be affordable for small platforms yet large enough to cover anticipated breach events. Any breach event can be brought forth by a member platform or a petition of 100 signatures for consideration by the delegate signatories. A vote of 4 or more delegate signatures is required to release any funds, which could partially or fully restore lost funds based on their assessment.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.