Crypto Scammers Target British Army Twitter and YouTube Accounts

Hackers are going all-in in their quests to draw attention to their preferred crypto projects. The latest antic is a hack of the British Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts to promote non-fungible token (NFT) projects.

Over the weekend, reports of the hacking of the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the British Army were confirmed by an Army spokesperson. The Twitter account with over 362,000 followers was inundated with posts promoting NFT projects with the account name changed to “pssssd” and ‘BAPESCLAN” at different times.

The tweets from the hacked account announced the creation of a new NFT collection, with the link leading to a fake minting website and a counter that showed the number of pieces depleting. The compromised account also retweeted a series of NFT-related scams.

Hackers used the official channel of the YouTube page to feature videos from a talk hosted by Ark Investment Management in 2021 with Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Cathie Woods in attendance. The bad actors renamed the channel, with over 177,000 subscribers, “Ark Invest.” 

The army’s resolve

After confirming the security breach of its social media handles, the spokesperson for the British Army announced that the institution would be launching a full-scale investigation to bring the culprits to book. The spokesperson noted that “until the investigation is complete, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

A few hours later, the army regained control of its Twitter and YouTube accounts. “Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident,” wrote the army.

Institutional accounts targeted by crypto hackers

Over the last 12 months, there has been a spike in the number of attacks on the social media accounts of institutions. In April, the official Twitter account of the University of the Philippines was hacked by unknown persons, promoting fake airdrops and renaming the page to “Takashi Murakami.”

Early in the year, the Twitter accounts of the India Council of World Affairs, Mann Deshi Mahila Bank, and the Indian Medical Association were hacked simultaneously. The personal Twitter account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi also suffered a similar fate. On each occasion, the hacker posted Bitcoin-related content and promoted NFT projects.