Hackers breached British Army Twitter and YouTube accounts to promote crypto scam

Unknown attackers breached the British Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and used them to promote a cryptocurrency-related scam. The Ministry of Defence confirmed the breach.

We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway.

The Army takes information security extremely seriously and is resolving the issue. Until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.

— Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) July 3, 2022

In the British Army’s Twitter account, the attackers announced an NFT airdrop. The link pinned in the description led to a fraudulent site, The Verge reports.

Hackers also compromised the British Army’s YouTube channel. It was renamed Ark Invest, all previous videos were deleted, and several “live streams” were started with Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, which were old recordings featuring the entrepreneurs. In the videos, viewers were urged to invest in fraudulent crypto projects through on-screen text.

As of writing, the British Army had restored access to its Twitter and YouTube accounts. An investigation is ongoing.

Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident. Thanks for following us and normal service will now resume.

— British Army 🇬🇧 (@BritishArmy) July 3, 2022

In February, viewers on YouTube lost $1.6 million in cryptocurrency over three days on fake streams. The attackers edited together videos from old appearances of famous figures in the Bitcoin community and entrepreneurs.

In 2020, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sued the video hosting platform over fake bitcoin giveaways in his name, but lost the case.

In May 2022, on Twitter a deepfake of Elon Musk circulated, in which he urged people to invest in a scam project.

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