A screenshot of the British Military’s Twitter profile when it used to be hacked, by means of Wayback Gadget. Its profile and banner footage have been modified to resemble a nonfungible token assortment referred to as “The Possessed.”
A hacker compromised the social media accounts of the British Military to push other folks towards cryptocurrency scams.
The military’s Twitter and YouTube profiles have been taken over by way of the hacker, or hackers — the identification of whom isn’t but identified — on Sunday. The Twitter account’s identify used to be modified to “pssssd,” and its profile and banner footage have been modified to resemble a nonfungible token assortment referred to as “The Possessed.”
The Possessed’s reliable Twitter account warned customers of a “new verified SCAM account” impersonating the selection of NFTs — tokens representing possession of items of on-line content material.
Previous Sunday, the account used to be renamed “Bapesclan” — the identify of any other NFT assortment — whilst its banner symbol used to be modified to a cool animated film ape with clown make-up on. The hacker additionally started retweeting posts selling NFT giveaway schemes.
Bapesclan did not right away reply to a CNBC direct message on Twitter.
The identify of the U.Okay. army’s YouTube account, in the meantime, used to be modified to “Ark Make investments,” the funding company of Tesla and bitcoin bull Cathie Wooden.
The hacker deleted the entire account’s movies and changed with them with livestreams of previous clips taken from a dialog with Elon Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on bitcoin that used to be hosted by way of Ark in July 2021. Textual content used to be added to the livestreams directing customers to crypto rip-off web pages.
Each accounts have since been returned to their rightful proprietor.
“The breach of the Military’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that happened previous these days has been resolved and an investigation is underway,” Britain’s Ministry of Protection tweeted Monday.
“The Military takes knowledge safety extraordinarily critically and till their investigation is whole it might be irrelevant to remark additional.”
A Twitter spokesperson showed the British Military’s account “used to be compromised and has since been locked and secured.”
“The account holders have now regained get admission to and the account is again up and working,” the spokesperson informed CNBC by means of electronic mail.
A YouTube consultant used to be no longer right away to be had for remark when reached by way of CNBC.
Tobias Ellwood, a British Conservative lawmaker who chairs the protection committee in Parliament, mentioned the breach “seems to be severe.”
“I am hoping the result of the investigation and movements taken can be shared accurately.”
It isn’t the primary time a high-profile social media account has been exploited by way of hackers to advertise crypto scams. In 2020, the Twitter accounts of Musk, President Joe Biden and a large number of others have been taken over to swindle their fans of bitcoin.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this record