British Army’s Twitter Account and YouTube Channel — Hacked !
Hackers gained control of the British Army’s Twitter account on Sunday, resulting in a deluge of content offering giveaways and contests where followers could win non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
🚨 BREAKING NEWS | The British Army Twitter account (@BritishArmy) has been hacked and is now posting tweets promoting competitions to win NFTs and claiming the UK is going to attack Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/6cTM8t5dfP
— George Allison (@geoallison) July 3, 2022
The name of the social media account was altered at least two times, and new profile images were uploaded that included a robot and an ape wearing makeup resembling that of the Batman villain The Joker.
The account’s posts encouraged followers to enter competitions, with winners chosen at random to get NFTs, which are blockchain-stored digital artworks.
British Army Twitter account @BritishArmy appears to have been hacked pic.twitter.com/41HPtSeln1
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) July 3, 2022
As some pointed out, after the initial NFT posts, the hackers decided to amuse themselves by posting random messages like declaring war on Pakistan.
The YouTube account of the British Army was also infiltrated and replaced by an account called Ark Invest, which promoted multiple livestreams ostensibly showing a cryptocurrency discussion with Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Ark Invest is a large international investing company tied to crypto technologies; however, it is unclear if the company had anything to do with the hack.
The @BritishArmy YouTube account right now. pic.twitter.com/Ol6ZsCThbw
— Jackson Palmer (@ummjackson) July 3, 2022
The shenanigans on the army’s official Twitter account lasted about half an hour, after which new posts were deleted and the account’s bio was restored. As for the account’s avatar, it remained blank for about an hour longer.
At 9 p.m. GMT, the account was restored and the social media manager in charge of the British Army’s account apologized to subscribers.
Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident. Thanks for following us and normal service will now resume.
— British Army 🇬🇧 (@BritishArmy) July 3, 2022
The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway.
The Army takes information security extremely seriously and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.
— Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) July 3, 2022
Many on Twitter took the opportunity to drag the UK service, mocking the branch for ever referring to itself as a “responsible cyberpower” – as it does so on its accounts.
Ahem @BWallaceMP @TomTugendhat @JohnnyMercerUK pic.twitter.com/DJSnZjY2mz
— Jeremy Westhead (@JeremyWesthead) July 3, 2022
Some advised the branch to change its password and enable two-factor authentication, for example, via phone.