Did John Wick Hack Indian PM Modi Again And Give Away 500 Bitcoin?

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Asian governments are normally quick to put a stop to anyone trying to take control of their social media. When Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai earlier this year accused a top government official of assaulting her, the sheer mention of the word ‘tennis’ briefly disappeared from the internet behind the ‘great firewall’.

India is not yet up to that level of total control, certainly given the fact that Prime Minister Modi’s twitter account was hacked (again) over the weekend and an unnamed person decided to declare Bitcoin legal tender. The account with some 73 million followers even decided to donate 500 Bitcoin away to anyone (un)lucky enough to quickly react. Some 12 people communicated with the account in question apparently.

Bitcoin scammers declare the cryptocurrency as India’s legal tender. pic.twitter.com/uTe1R7XUWZ

— Priya (@supesuonna) December 11, 2021

The Indian government quickly put out a statement saying:

The Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised. The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account has been immediately secured. In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored.

Was the Twitter account of the Hon’ble PM shri #NarendraModi ji hacked? And promise of #Bitcoin !! pic.twitter.com/uz1U2IAJaZ

— Tehseen Poonawalla Official 🇮🇳 (@tehseenp) December 11, 2021

Relief fund for Covid 19

After that, Modi’s office took back control of the account and started tweeting normally again. The matter was quite funny given that there’s a debate ongoing within Indian politics as to the legality of cryptocurrencies, which are highly popular in the giant country.

Even more impressive is that this isn’t the first time Modi’s twitter account has gotten hacked. Back in 2020, a hacker who goes by the handle John Wick (Keanu Reeves’ character in the movie series with the same name) also took over the account and tweeted in Modi’s name for a while.

Back then, tweets were being posted telling the prime minister’s followers to ”donate generously to PM National Relief Fund for Covid-19,” showing a crypto wallet address.

Perhaps it’s time for the Indian government to take cybersecurity more serious. Or for Bollywood to make their own version of the John Wick movies. Seems like it’s popular over there.

legan80 / Depositphotos.com