UK’s Cabinet Minister’s Twitter Account Hacked: To promote Crypto

• MP for Chichester, Gillian Keegan’s Twitter account, was hacked on December 25, 2022.
• All evening her account was used to promote crypto to various prominent personalities. 
• Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Commons Speaker, has previously advised MPs to be aware of hacks.  

Recently 400 million Twitter accounts were hacked, including many prominent personalities like Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Continuing the chain of events British Education Secretary’s Twitter account was apparently hacked, the profile pic was changed to that of Elon Musk, and several promoting tweets regarding cryptocurrency events were posted. 

Gillian Keegan, the MP for Chichester, replied to numerous tweets on the day of Christmas with links to websites promoting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and DOGE. 

Such an influx of tweets suggested that the security had been compromised. By December 26, 2022, all references to Gillian in her Twitter name, photograph, biography and banner were removed. 

In reply to a tweet by Musk, her account said:

“Thank you for another great year! This feels alot like Christmas. Don’t miss guys!! BREAKING NEWS 4 Christmas.”

Such bizarre tweets began appearing shortly after 7:30 PM on December 25, 2022 and continued throughout the evening till the early hours of Boxing Day. 

In November, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Commons speaker, advised the members of parliaments to update their mobile phones’ security by using multi-factor verification, deleting old messages and upgrading system software. This warning came after Liz Truss’s phone was allegedly hacked by Russians during her time as foreign secretary. 

Sir Hoyle’s letter to the MPs included 10 security tips and said:

“You may not feel able to do everything on this list, but the more you do the less likely your personal information and mobile phone will be compromised, or the less damaging the consequences if you are hacked.”

The British army’s YouTube and Twitter accounts were allegedly hacked in July, and posts regarding NFTs promotion and a pretend interview with Musk about cryptocurrency were posted on them. 

Elon Musk has been very vocal regarding his commitment to stamping out false and malicious users on the social media platform. 

Recent Twitter Hack

Just a year ago, in November 2021, there was a data leak at Twitter that affected 5.4 million users, as reported by Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), and just the next day, data of 400 million Twitter users were put for sale on the dark web, including many prominent personalities.

To prove the authenticity of data, hackers posted data samples from hacker forums containing user names, email IDs, follower counts, and phone numbers(in some cases).

The hacker has asked openly that to avoid the 400 million fine Twitter might incur due to this hack, Elon Musk can pay $276 million and buy back the data.  

This can prove negative for Musk’s image as he has been facing the wrath of hundreds of employees who were either removed or have resigned from Twitter since his acquisition. Although, with whatever he had faced at the time of SpaceX and PayPal, we can hope that he can make this all work out. 

Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.

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