YouTube and Twitter accounts belonging to the British Army have been restored after a hacking incident. The account was taken over by the infamous crypto scammers who have been hacking, renaming and using the accounts to commit cryptocurrency fraud.
The scammers went ahead and uploaded popular videos of Elon Musk talking about cryptocurrency on the YouTube channel. The Twitter account was used to share info relating to NFTs. The British Army confirmed the breach, saying they took the issue of security very seriously.
“Whilst we have now resolved the issue an investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further.” An Army spokesperson added.
Read: UK Gov’t Pledges to Support Probe into Murder of Woman By British Soldier in Nanyuki
At one point, the Twitter handle was changed to @Bapesclan, with a profile picture of an ape-like cartoon figure wearing clown make-up.
Both YouTube and Twitter Accounts were restored by Sunday evening.
“Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident. Thanks for following us and normal service will now resume.” The Army tweeted.
YouTube recently came under fire for failing to moderate the scammers. According to the BBC, a network of cyber-criminals has been streaming fake Elon Musk videos to scam viewers. The report is not alien to Kenyans and East Africans where a number of high-profile YouTube accounts have suffered a similar fate.
Read also: Cases of Influencers, Companies Losing Instagram Accounts to Hackers for Ransom on the Rise
A few months ago, KahawaTungu reported that one of the biggest Kenyan YouTube Channels, Citizen TV, was hacked and taken over by scammers who started streaming videos promoting cryptocurrency. The BBC report corroborates the events, saying it had established that several YouTube accounts were being hacked and used for fake cryptocurrency giveaways.
Tanzanian Singer, Diamond Platnumz also faced a similar predicament last month after losing his account to hackers. The massive following of the hacked accounts means that the bogus cryptocurrency videos are watched by tens of thousands of users, making it easy for viewers to get scammed.
Tesla Boss Elon Musk’s name is commonly used by the crypto scammers in their videos. Several viewers are duped into sending their cryptocurrency to criminals thinking they will win a prize from the billionaire. The videos are reportedly sourced from a cryptocurrency discussion panel Musk attended together with Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.
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