Centre issues notice to Twitter over high-profile hacks by Bitcoin scammers

Days after Twitter informed that about 130 accounts were hacked during this week's cyberattack that also targeted some high-profile handles on platform, Government of India has issued tice to company to seek details of same.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under Ministry of Electronics and Information Techlogy, has asked Twitter to furnish full details of global hack, number of Indian users affected and data impacted, sources told news ncy PTI on Saturday.

This comes a day after Maharashtra Cyber Cell issued an official visory asking social media users to remain vigilant in backdrop of massive cyberattack on Twitter on July 16. Maharashtra's Cyber Cell, which is also state's dal ncy for cybersecurity and crime investigation, urged users to remain cautious and t blindly trust content posted on social media. investigation team furr asked users to refrain from sharing and circulating posts which y may feel are fake or those which promote hate speech.

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Twitter accounts hacked by Bitcoin scammers

On June 16, a number of high-profile celebrities with verified Twitter accounts fell prey to Bitcoin hackers in one of Twitter's worst security breaches in its history. Accounts of prominent personalities along with likes of former US President Barack Obama, billionaire entrepreneurs Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, rapper Kanye West and US Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, were hacked by Bitcoin scammers, who circulated spam messs from ir profiles asking people to donate money to a Bitcoin wallet dress embedded as a link. 

Twitter said that it believes hacking was a coordinated “social engineering attack” as y successfully targeted some of employees with access to internal systems and tools. hackers used access to take control of many highly-visible and verified accounts and tweet on ir behalf. America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly leing probe into attack on Twitter. According to media reports, over $100,000 worth of Bitcoins was scammed from users during security attack.

'Tough day'

Following attack, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey h posted, "Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened. We’re diagsing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened. Love(Blue emoji) to our teammates working hard to make this right."

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