{"id":47369,"date":"2022-07-04T01:07:07","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T01:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/british-army-twitter-and-youtube-feeds-hijacked-by-crypto-promos\/"},"modified":"2022-07-04T01:07:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T01:07:07","slug":"british-army-twitter-and-youtube-feeds-hijacked-by-crypto-promos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/british-army-twitter-and-youtube-feeds-hijacked-by-crypto-promos\/","title":{"rendered":"British Army Twitter and YouTube feeds hijacked by crypto-promos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Army has apologizsed after its Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised by entities that used them to promote NFTs.<\/p>\n

As recorded by The Wayback Machine<\/a>, the @BritishArmy Twitter feed hosted content promoting non-fungible tokens described thusly: “The Anomalies is a collection of special Possessed 1\/1s”.<\/p>\n

\"@British<\/a><\/p>\n

@British Army Twitter account hijack from Wayback Machine. Click to enlarge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

According to Web3-watcher Web3 is going just great<\/a> \u2013 the British Army YouTube account was taken over at the same time as the Twitter takedown.<\/p>\n

The YouTube takeover replaced the legit account with fake logos resembling those used by an investment management firm and filled it with more crypto boosterism \u2013 namely a video that cut an old chat between Elon Musk and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey into a new and misleading narrative.<\/p>\n

The @BritishArmy account apologized for the outage.<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2014 British Army \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 (@BritishArmy) July 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Ministry of Defence later swung into action, as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway.\n<\/p>\n

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

\u2014 Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) July 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway.\n<\/p>\n

The Army takes information security extremely seriously and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress) July 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Social media services increasingly use two-factor authentication before allowing password changes. The Register<\/i> mentions this only as it suggests whoever was behind the hijack was able to access a Defence email address to get into the social media accounts. Either that, or the British Army needs to use much stronger passwords.<\/p>\n

The takeovers have of course sparked reams of disdainful comment.<\/p>\n

Ironically, some of those appear on this video<\/a> that features General Sir Patrick Sanders, who in June assumed the post of chief of general staff \u2013 the head of the British Army \u2013 delivering a speech<\/a> in which he stated “Defence is only as strong as its weakest domain. And technology does not eliminate the relevance of combat mass.”<\/p>\n