British Army regains control of hacked Twitter and YouTube accounts

The British Army social media accounts were applied to put up about NFTs and cryptocurrencies.

The British Army has verified it is conducting an investigation just after its Twitter and YouTube accounts had been hacked yesterday (3 July).

For the duration of the hack, the accounts had been made use of to share posts about cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

The army’s Twitter account title, profile image, include picture and bio had been all adjusted to glance like it was linked with an NFT assortment, The Verge noted. The account reportedly connected customers to a pretend NFT minting site.

The army’s YouTube channel, meanwhile, was renamed to Ark Spend, The Guardian reported. The account appeared to boost an job interview with Tesla founder Elon Musk about cryptocurrency.

The Guardian also mentioned the army’s Twitter profile was adjusted at one particular level to have the name Bapescan, with an ape-like cartoon profile photo.

The accounts show up to be back below control. The British Military tweeted at 9pm last night that “normal company will now resume” and that it will “learn from this incident”.

The UK’s ministry of defence press place of work tweeted more than an hour later that the breach had been fixed and that an investigation is underway.

“The military takes information and facts security very severely and right until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment even further,” the ministry claimed.

It is presently unclear who was behind the hack, but it is not the initially time a higher-profile account has been specific on Twitter.

In 2020, a main hack managed to collect $116,000 really worth of bitcoin following breaching the Twitter accounts of superstars and tricking followers to send out cryptocurrency payments. The specific accounts included Elon Musk, Invoice Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden and Kanye West.

The ‘aftermath’ of attacks

A amount of United kingdom MPs took to Twitter to share their views on the breach, with Tobias Ellwood stating the hack “looks serious” whilst Michael Fabricant referred to it as “embarrassing”.

This appears to be like really serious.

I hope the final results of the investigation and actions taken will be shared appropriately. https://t.co/NTqdZScOtu

— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) July 3, 2022

Whilst the hack may well not be the operate of a further country, Jamie Moles, senior complex supervisor at cybersecurity service provider ExtraHop, stated nation state assaults happen “constantly” with international locations this kind of as Russia, China and North Korea screening network boundaries.

“Interestingly more than enough, assaults really don’t even have to be entirely successful to lead to damage,” Moles explained. “All hackers need to have to do is initiate an assault and get the word out.”

Moles mentioned the general public doesn’t see driving the scenes and only witnesses the “aftermath” of attacks, which can manifest in numerous approaches.

He additional that there are indications that every person need to glimpse out for this kind of as alterations to corporation community speeds, bigger site visitors or a system with decrease qualifications trying to accessibility a substantial-ranking machine or doc.

“Failing to get ready for these types of an attack indicates responding in worry method, which not often – if ever – ends perfectly.”

In April of this yr, cybersecurity authorities from nations in the 5 Eyes intelligence alliance issued a warning about the risk of Russian state-sponsored cyberattacks on significant infrastructure methods.

Microsoft claimed in a report previous month that it detected Russian “network intrusion efforts” on 128 organisations in 42 nations exterior Ukraine. The report recommended that Russian intelligence companies have “stepped up community penetration and espionage activities” from Ukraine’s allies.

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