I&B Ministry's Twitter account hacked briefly, name changed to Elon Musk, restored soon

Pic for representational use only

New Delhi: The official Twitter account of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) was hacked for a brief time on Wednesday and was restored later. According to officials, some posts tagging entrepreneur Elon Musk were tweeted from the ministry's Twitter handle.

"It happened for around 10-15 minutes after which the Twitter handle was resumed. There were random posts and replies tagging Elon Musk. It is too early to comment on the inquiry aspect of the matter as the plan of action is yet to be decided," a ministry official said.

According to reports, the hackers re-tweeted several posts of Musk and also tweeted "great job" from the official handle of the ministry.

The tweets were deleted after the account was restored. "The account of @Mib_india has been restored. This is for the information of all the followers," the ministry tweeted.

The account @Mib_india has been restored. This is for the information of all the followers. — Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (@MIB_India) January 12, 2022

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter handle was also briefly hacked and a tweet claiming that India has "officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender" was put out from it. 

However, the Prime Minister's Office had later said the account was immediately secured after the matter was escalated to Twitter.