A hacker used the British Army’s social media profiles to direct people to bitcoin frauds.

On Sunday, the army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts were taken over by a hacker or hackers whose identity is unknown. The Twitter account’s name was changed to “pssssd,” and its profile and header images were altered to mimic “The Possessed,” a nonfungible token collection.

The official Twitter account of The Possessed cautioned readers of a “new verified SCAM account” imitating the collection of NFTs — tokens indicating ownership of online material.

The account was renamed “Bapesclan” – the name of another NFT collection — earlier Sunday, and its banner image was changed to a cartoon ape wearing clown makeup.

In addition, the hacker began retweeting tweets advertising NFT giveaway scams.

Meanwhile, the name of the United Kingdom military’s YouTube account has been changed to “Ark Invest,” the investment firm of Tesla and bitcoin bull Cathie Wood.

The hacker erased all of the account’s recordings and replaced them with livestreams of old films from a bitcoin discussion with Elon Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey hosted by Ark in July 2021. Text was added to the livestreams that directed viewers to cryptocurrency fraud websites.

Both accounts were eventually returned to their original owners.

“The breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts that occurred earlier today has been resolved and an investigation is underway,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense tweeted Monday.

“The Army takes information security extremely seriously and until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

A representative for the British Army stated that the account “was compromised and has since been shut and secured.”

“The account holders have now regained access and the account is back up and running,” the spokesperson told the media via email.

There were no comments from YouTube.  

Tobias Ellwood, a British Conservative MP who chairs Parliament’s defence committee, described the breach as “severe.”

“I hope the results of the investigation and actions taken will be shared appropriately.”

It’s not the first time hackers have used a high-profile social media account to push cryptocurrency schemes. In 2020, the Twitter accounts of Musk, President Joe Biden, and others were hijacked in order to defraud their bitcoin fans.

(Adapted from WionNews.com)