British Army social media platforms hacked to promote crypto scams

AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski

While most of the U.S. Military was busy preparing for the Fourth of July celebrations over the weekend, the British Army faced a digital threat it was unprepared to deal with. 

At some point over the weekend, the British Army lost access to its Twitter and YouTube accounts, which were breached by a hacker who used their social media platforms to promote NFTs and crypto scams. 

According to the BBC, the hacker or hackers used their YouTube account to share videos on cryptocurrency using images of Tesla CEO Elon Musk to promote the scams. On Twitter, the British Army account retweeted several posts related to NFTs. 

The British Army confirmed that a breach happened to the BBC, stating that it took information security “extremely seriously.” 

“Whilst we have now resolved the issue an investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further,” said a British Army spokesperson. 

“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 spokesperson added. 

“I hope the results of the investigation and actions taken will be shared appropriately," said Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who said that the breach “looks serious.” 

The British Army’s Twitter account name was changed to Bapesclan, which featured a profile picture of an ape-like NFT in clown makeup.  

According to the website Web3 is going just great, the army’s Twitter account details were changed to resemble the Possessed NFT Project. 

“Tweets from the account announced a 'new NFT collection' and linked to a fake minting website, complete with a fake counter showing the number of available NFTs appearing to dwindle,” the publication reported. 

“Meanwhile, the YouTube account was rebranded to resemble ARK Invest, the investment management firm founded by Cathie Wood. It ran a steady stream of fake videos cribbed from an old, real livestream with Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, but surrounded with borders promoting 'double your money' Bitcoin and Ether scams. This is a common YouTube scam, and one such scam earned crypto scammers $1.3 million in 24 hours back in May.”