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The British Army is conducting an investigation after it reclaimed control of its Twitter and YouTube accounts, after the social media accounts were briefly hacked.
The British Army is investigating a “breach” of its Twitter and YouTube accounts over the weekend, with hackers appearing to have used the accounts to post about cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens.
According to the Guardian, the British Army’s Twitter account had been hacked and renamed “BAPESCAN” and the profile picture replaced with a cartoon monkey in face paint.
The Twitter account’s description had been changed from: “Follow us for news and information on deployments, training exercises, ceremonial duties & regimental events. Recruiting @armyjobs” to “#1 metavesto clan on the ETH chain with multi-billion dollar experience. Powered by @chaintchlabs.”
After the British Army’s Twitter account had been restored; retweets of posts regarding NFTs, non-fungible tokens or digital artworks, that appeared to have been posted by the hackers were still on the army’s Twitter at 8.30pm on Sunday night based on the Guardian report.
According to Reuters the British Army’s YouTube account had also been hacked and renamed “Ark Invest”, with its photo replaced with the company’s logo. The YouTube account briefly hosted video content showing several videos relating to cryptocurrency after it had been hacked but it has now been restored to its original state.
Ark Invest is a global investment firm and is yet to respond to a request for comment.
It is not known who is behind the hacks.
A British Army spokesperson confirmed that an investigation is underway.
“We take information security extremely seriously and are resolving the issue,” the British Army spokesperson said.
“We are aware of a breach of the army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is under way.
“Until the investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
A tweet posted by the covered British Army account reaffirmed the investigation following the brief hacking incident.
“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,” the Twitter post stated.
The British Army’s Twitter feed currently has 362,000 followers, while the YouTube channel has 177,000 subscribers.
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