Twitter confirms India PM Modi’s personal website account hacked

Account, with more than 2.5 million followers, used to solicit donations for relief fund through cryptocurrency.

India''s Independence Day celebrations at the historic Red Fort in Delhi
The Twitter account linked to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website was hacked, the platform confirmed on Thursday [File: Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Twitter confirmed on Thursday that an account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website was hacked with a series of tweets asking its followers to donate to a relief fund through cryptocurrency.

The incident comes after several Twitter accounts of prominent personalities were hacked in July.

Twitter said it was aware of the activity with Modi’s website account and had taken steps to secure it.

“We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted,” a Twitter spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

Modi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the tweets posted on the account @narendramodi_in.

The account, with more than 2.5 million followers, is the official Twitter handle for Modi’s personal website and the Narendra Modi mobile application.

Modi’s personal Twitter account, which was unaffected by this incident, has more than 61 million followers.

The tweets, which have since been taken down, asked followers to donate to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.

In July, hackers accessed Twitter’s internal systems to hijack some of the platform’s top voices including United States presidential candidate Joe Biden, former US President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk, and used them to solicit digital currency.

Source: Reuters