The official Twitter handle of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) was hacked on Sunday, July 18. The hacker removed the Twitter bio from the party’s official verified handle and also changed the name from AIMIM to ‘Elon Musk’. The image of the handle was also changed to a photo of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
While no new tweets were posted by the account, the hacker has left replies about cryptocurrency on other tweets. In fact, one of the replies has been made to an Elon Musk tweet too.
AIMIM’s Twitter handle has about 6.78 lakh followers, and the following count does not seem to have been affected in the cyber attack. At the time of writing, the hacker still seems to have control of the AIMIM account. According to reports, the party is making attempts to secure the handle.
AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi has not responded to the cyber attack as yet. Asaduddin Owaisi is the Member of Parliament of Lok Sabha from Hyderabad constituency.
Screenshot of the hacked account
A few days ago, the website of Indore police was hacked and objectionable content against Prime Minister Narendra Modi was posted on it along with slogans like "free Kashmir" and hailing Pakistan.
Earlier, in February 2020, Jagtial District Collector’s Twitter handle was also hacked, and the hacker commented on a post put up by south Indian actor Rashmika Mandanna. The collector had also taken the issue to the notice of police.
Meanwhile in April 2021, Andhra Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy’s Twitter handle was also hacked according to the reports, the hacker had posted pornographic material from the account. The minister had also later approached the cyber police to file a complaint.
Recently, verified Twitter accounts of multiple journalists were hacked, and the hackers posed as Twitter Support and sent private messages to many other verified accounts, leading to cyber experts flagging the issue to Twitter. Many people shared screenshots of the fake private message they received, which read, “Hi Dear User, Copyright infringement was detected in one of the tweets on your account. If you think copyright infringement is wrong, you need to provide feedback. Otherwise, your account will be suspended within 48 hours. You can give feedback at the link below. Thank you for your understanding.” However, experts have said that this could have been a phishing scam.