The Twitter accounts of the Uttar Pradesh government and the Punjab Congress were hacked on Monday morning. Both the accounts have now been restored.
The two accounts had posted a series of tweets on non-fungible tokens. The tweets have now been deleted.
A non-fungible token is a digital asset on blockchain that has a unique signature. Such tokens are usually bought with cryptocurrencies.
“In celebration for the reveal of the Beanz Official Collection, we have opened up an airdrop to all active NFT traders in the community for the next 24 hours,” a message that was pinned on both accounts read.
The profile photos and descriptions of both the accounts had also been changed.
The Uttar Pradesh government’s handle was restored within minutes, but the one belonging to the Punjab Congress took longer, according to NDTV.
In the past few days, six widely-followed Indian accounts on Twitter have been hacked. The Twitter handles that were earlier hacked were those of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the University Grants Commission, India Meteorological Department, and Info Uttar Pradesh Fact Check.
The Uttar Pradesh Police had filed a first information report in connection with the hacking of the chief minister’s account, according to NDTV.
In December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account was also briefly hacked and a tweet on Bitcoin had been put out.
“India has officially adopted Bitcoin as legal tender,” the tweet had said. “The government has officially bought 500 BTC [bitcoins] and is distributing them to all residents of the country.”
Earlier in September 2020 too, an unidentified group had hacked the Twitter account linked to Modi’s personal website and mobile application.
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