Key Takeaways:
- Hackers took control of the verified Twitter and YouTube accounts of the British Army
- The compromised accounts then made several posts promoting fake NFT drops
- The British Army's YouTube channel featured several videos of Elon Musk under the name "Ark Invest"
YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — Hackers compromised the official social media accounts of the British Army to promote nonfungible token (NFT) and crypto scams.
The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed the news of the hack through an official post.
“We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway. The Army takes information security extremely seriously and is resolving the issue. Until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further,”
the announcement read.
At the time of the hack, the verified Twitter account of the British Armed Forces had over 362,000 followers. Their YouTube account, meanwhile, boasted 177,000 followers, according to Web3-watcher Web3 Is Going Just Great.
In a subsequent tweet, the Ministry said they had restored the compromised accounts. However, it fell short of giving away any further details until it completed the entire investigation.
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Shilling NFT projects via Twitter
Following the hack, the attackers reportedly replaced the British Army’s profile image, cover image, and bio description to dupe unsuspecting investors. Instead, they made the page seem like it belonged to The Possessed NFT collection.
Through several ‘Free Giveaway’ posts, the hackers directed users to a website where they supposedly could mint their NFTs. To make it all look genuine, the sham link even had a fake NFT mint counter, showing the numbers of available NFTs declining.
The Wayback Machine, which daily archives web pages from websites, displays a list of various posts the hackers made on the account.
The British Army has since apologized to its followers for the incident, promising to “learn from this incident.”
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Hackers use British Army YouTube to promote Ark Investment
In an extended attack on the British Armed forces, hackers took over control of its YouTube account and renamed it ‘Ark Invest.’
Ark Invest is an America-based investment management firm Cathie Wood founded in 2014. The fund has nearly $15 billion assets under management (AUM).
The hacked account posted several scam videos featuring Wood and Elon Musk.
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who also serves as The Chair of the House of Commons, was shocked at the incident. Expressing his concerns, he called for transparency in the matter.
“This looks serious. I hope the results of the investigation and actions taken will be shared appropriately,”
he tweeted.
Another Conservative MP, Michael Fabricant, also reacted on Twitter.
This is not the first time hackers have used Musk as bait. Last year CoinChapter reported how grifters compromised several verified accounts and used Musk as bait to dupe unsuspecting investors.
In 2020, online criminals hacked the Twitter accounts of Kanye West, Elon Musk, and several other individuals and companies. In similar cases, the accounts of Kim Kardashian, Apple, and Uber were also compromised.
Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, US President Barack Obama, and Joe Biden also fell victims to identity theft incidents.
More recently, the account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi fell to hackers. Moreover, the accounts of various Indian Government bodies, including the office of the Chief Minister of India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh, got hacked to promote NFTs.
