On Wednesday night, in a synchronised cyber attack, a few British politicians and several international organisations, including the one mentioned above, were hacked on X, which was earlier known as Twitter. Some of the profile participants impacted are Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary of the UK, Chris Elmore, and Carolyn Harris, among other Labour MPs.
The posts that the hackers posted were in one organised format, stating, “THIS IS HACKED ACCOUNT!!!! INTRODUCING HACKED ON SOLANA. On each account we hack, we publish the token address, so we pump it and make profits together. ” A long code followed this text before the posts were quickly deleted. Nevertheless, it was erased instantly. Nonetheless the message was still displayed in the TweetDeck, which is an application for tracking X accounts.
The concerned breach on Mahmood’s account occurred at 7:53 PM and was addressed at 7:55 PM. This is not the first time when such an incident has occurred; in the year 2016, the official Twitter page of Jeremy Corbyn was hacked, and abusive tweets targeted then Prime Minister David Cameron along with Criticism of the Trident nuclear defence programme.
The same attack also affected other verified accounts, those of the World Health Organization, Great British Menu and Lenovo India among others. While the posts were restored and Ladd later deleted many of them, some of the hacked posts remained online for quite some time.
Other personalities who claimed that their accounts were hacked include British comedian and actor Sooz Kempner. She said in X that she had changed her password after the incident as well.
This hacking incident shows current issues in cyber security and how specific personality’s accounts on social sites can easily be compromised.
This has generated a lot of alarm within the political and international circles, emphasising the ever-present danger of cyber attacks against influential personalities and institutions. The content of the messages and the advertisements of various cryptocurrency scams clearly point out that the hackers were interested in making payments from the bullocking accounts. This case thereby serves as a reminder that there is a compelling need for improvement of security and the safeguarding of data and the sanctity of sites.
As a result of the attack X has been actively trying to counter the security compromise and foil subsequent attempts of unauthorised access. The parties that have been affected have been advised to review and enhance the account security measures. As the investigations are prolonged, more attention will be paid to the procedure of such attacks and ways of avoiding similar incidents. The hack is the message about the capabilities of the enemies and the crucial significance of protection from the threats of digital trends in communications.
