July 5, 2022
The British Army regained control of its Twitter and YouTube accounts on Sunday after they were hacked and used to briefly display crypto and NFTs ads.
“We apologize for the temporary interruption of our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident,” read a post on the @ BritishArmy Twitter handle. The British Army will not release any further information until the investigation is complete.
During the hack, the British Army’s Twitter handle retweeted several posts about NFTs. The YouTube account was renamed ‘Ark Invest’ and showed several videos about cryptocurrencies.
“The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occured earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway. The army takes information security extremely seriously, and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further,” the Ministry of Defence Press Office said.
The British Army Twitter account has 362,000 followers and the YouTube channel has 177,000 subscribers.
The use of the British Army’s social media account to spread crypto-advertising reinforces a recent trend in which attackers target large profiles to promote their content.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
