Both the UK military’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were hacked and used to promote cryptocurrency scams, the UK Defense Ministry confirmed on Sunday. It’s unclear when exactly hackers took over the two accounts, but they both appear to be back to normal now.
“We are aware of a breach of the military’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway,” the Ministry of Defense Press Service said. said on Twitter† “The military takes information security very seriously and is solving the problem.”
Hackers have hijacked the British Army’s Twitter page, swapping the organization’s profile photo, biography, and cover photo to make it look like it was associated with The Possessed NFT collection. The account sent out several retweets for NFT giveaways and the pinned tweet linked users to a fake NFT coin website.
The videos on the British Army YouTube channel were replaced with old live streams featuring Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey.
Bad actors have also gutted the British Army YouTube channel, removed all videos and changed the name and profile picture to resemble the legit investment company Ark Invest. Hackers replaced the British military’s videos with a series of old live streams featuring former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. These live streams were previously broadcast as part of the B Word conference held by Ark Invest last June, but hackers added an overlay encouraging users to participate in a crypto scam. The channel broadcast four live streams simultaneously, some of which drew thousands of viewers.
As Web3 goes simply great blogger Molly White points out, the scammers who took over the British Army accounts carried out their plan using some of the same tactics used in the recent past. Back in March, hackers took over the Twitter account of MKLeo, one of the world’s top Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players, over and over used it to sell fake NFTs that looked like they were associated with The Possessed. Just two months after that incident, scammers managed to steal $1.3 million using the same Ark Invest live streams that were repurposed for this hack.
Twitter spokesman Rocio Vives told The Verge that the British Army’s Twitter account “has been locked and secured since then”, and that “account holders now have access and the account is active again.” Google did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
This post The British Army’s YouTube and Twitter Accounts Have Been Hacked to Promote Crypto Scams
was original published at “https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/3/23193668/british-army-youtube-twitter-accounts-hacked-promote-crypto-scam-fraud”