Indian ambassador to UN's Twitter account restored hours after hackers post Pak flag

Screengrab/Twitter

NEW DELHI: India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Syed Akbaruddin's verified Twitter handle has now been restored hours after it was hacked.

Thanking @TwitterIndia on Sunday, Akbaruddin wrote:

Akbaruddin's Twitter account has now been restored. "I'm back. It will take more than a hack to keep me down. Thanks to @TwitterIndia & many others who helped," the Indian Representative to UN tweeted.

Earlier in the day, Akbaruddin's Twitter account was reportedly hacked following which two photographs were posted - one was of Pakistan's flag and another was of the neighbouring country's President Mamnoon Hussain.

The pictures were posted during the wee hours of Sunday, and interestingly, the "blue tick" that marks a verified account also disappeared at the time.

The account has now, however, been restored along with the blue tick and the questionable tweets were also removed.

Evidently, the cyber attack has not been a new strategy for the terrorists in Pakistan, and government officials have been prime targets.

In 2016, a total of 199 government websites were hacked in India, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had told the Parliament.

In fact, more than 700 websites under the Indian government have been hacked from 2013 to 2016.

(With agency inputs)