Hackers take over IMA twitter account, rename handle to Elon Musk, promote Bitcoin links

New Delhi: The Twitter handle of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) was hacked on Sunday following which the alleged hackers re-shared several questionable posts related to Bitcoin after renaming the handles as 'Elon Musk'.

Besides IMA, the official accounts of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank (a Microfinance Bank) were also taken over by the hackers on January 2.

Commenting on the menace, IMA President Elect Sahajanand Prasad Singh told Medical Dialogues, "This is not the first time that a reputed doctor has to face this kind of incident. The accounts of the doctors who are like public figures are often targeted by miscreants for personal benefits. I demand strict action against such offenders. We can only try to avoid such incidents but the perpetrators will surely face consequences one way or another."

As per various media accounts, the hackers were seen tweeting cryptocurrency and Bitcoin links via a series of tweets. The twitter account of IMA along with ICRW was recovered eventually the same day later.

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They posted certain tweets, re-sharing various tweets of Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla, about cryptocurrencies and made certain tweets claiming to be Elon Musk. Republic World reports, the hacking might have taken place because of the password being compromised or a malicious link being clicked by the account users.

The display picture of the IMA account was changed to default immediately after the hacking, with the handle's name being changed back to a dot, indicating that the account was recovered.

However, the hacked tweets of Mann Deshi Mahila Bank's account was still visible on their account till late, reports The Quint.

The hacking report has come a few weeks after the Prime Minister's account was "briefly compromised" on 12th December. According to the Prime Minister's office, a Bitcoin giveaway link was posted by the hacker. In a tweet, the PMO stated, "The Twitter handle of PM @Narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured."

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