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British Army Twitter and YouTube accounts hacked to promote crypto scams

A screenshot of the British Army’s Twitter profile when it was hacked, via Wayback Machine. His profile and banner images have been changed to look like a collection of non-fungible tokens called “The Possessed”.



A hacker has compromised British Army social media accounts to trick people into cryptocurrency scams.

The army’s Twitter and YouTube profiles were taken over on Sunday by the hacker(s) – whose identity is not yet known. The Twitter account’s name was changed to “pssssd”, and its profile and banner images were changed to look like a collection of non-fungible tokens called “The Possessed”.

The official Twitter account of The Possessed has warned users of a “new verified SCAM account” posing as the collection of NFTs – tokens representing ownership of items of online content.

Earlier on Sunday, the account was renamed “Bapesclan” – the name of another NFT collection – while its banner image was changed to a cartoon monkey with clown makeup. The hacker also started retweeting posts promoting NFT giveaway schemes.

Bapesclan did not immediately respond to a direct message from Avresco on Twitter.

The name of the British Army’s YouTube account, meanwhile, has been changed to “Ark Invest”, the investment company of Tesla and bitcoin bull Cathie Wood.

The hacker deleted all videos from the account and replaced them with live streams of old clips taken from a conversation with Elon Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey about bitcoin hosted by Ark in July 2021 Text has been added to live streams directing users to crypto scam websites.

Both accounts have since been returned to their rightful owners.

“The breach of the military’s Twitter and YouTube accounts which occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is ongoing,” the UK Ministry of Defense tweeted on Monday.

“The military takes information security very seriously and until its investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further. »

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the British Army account “was compromised and has since been locked and secured”.

“Account owners have now regained access and the account is operational again,” the spokesperson told Avresco via email.

A YouTube representative was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Avresco.

Tobias Ellwood, a British Conservative lawmaker who chairs the Defense Committee in Parliament, said the breach “appears serious”.

“I hope that the results of the investigation and the measures taken will be shared appropriately. »

This is not the first time that a high profile social media account has been exploited by hackers to promote crypto scams. In 2020, the Twitter accounts of Musk, President Joe Biden and many others were taken over to scam their bitcoin followers.

Lora Kolodny of Avresco contributed to this report


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