IT Correspondent
New Delhi, July 19:
India’s cyber security nodal agency, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team(CERT-In), has issued a notice to “Twitter” asking the micro-blogging platform for full details of the recent global hack targeting high-profile users, as it sought complete information on number of Indian users affected as well as impact on data.
According to sources, that CERT-In has also asked “Twitter” for information on number of users from India who have visited the malicious tweets and links, and whether the affected users have been informed by the platform about unauthorised access to their Twitter accounts.
The government has also demanded information of vulnerability exploited by attackers and modus operandi of the attack and sought details of remedial actions taken by “Twitter” to mitigate the impact of the hacking incident. CERT-In swung into action after reports that hackers gained access to “Twitter”s systems to hack accounts of many global corporate leaders, politicians, celebrities and businesses.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Twitter accounts of famous figures began tweeting similar messages saying they were “feeling generous” and would double any “Bitcoin” payments sent to an address in the tweet. Among the individual accounts affected were former US President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, tech billionaires like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Mircosoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and celebrities such as Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West.
“Bitcoin” is a cryptocurrency invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto and started in 2009 when its source code was released as open-source software.
Hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities, and tech moguls in one of the most high-profile security breaches in recent years, highlighting a major flaw with the service millions of people have come to rely on as an essential communications tool. The intent of the hack appeared to be to steal money from unsuspecting crypto currency enthusiasts.
