A day after Rahul Gandhi’s hacked Twitter handle put out offensive and homophobic posts on Wednesday evening, the Congress party’s account has also been hacked and abusive tweets have been posted on Thursday morning.
The matter of the Congress Vice-President’s hacked account was taken to cyber cell on Thursday.
Over 200 congress accounts were suspended on Thursday and the leaders were asked to not use them for a few days, NDTV reported.
Tweets from both the verified accounts posted after the hacking have been deleted.
While Congress condemned the act, people on social media trolled the party and many alleged that the hacking had BJP’s support.
Initial reports on the probe suggested that Rahul Gandhi's official email ID was used to access his Twitter account, News18’s Subhajit Sengupta tweeted.
The NSUI’s website also seemed to have been down and Twitter users reported that multiple log-in attempts were made to hack into the Twitter handle.
The Congress’ official website, inc.in also seemed to have gone offline on Thursday evening.
The co-founder and CEO of Lucideus, Saket Modi, told The Quint about how the hacking could have been done. Modi said:
The social media hack of both the accounts can be a result of any one of the following two possibilities: It can either be a potential backdoor(malware) being present on a computer system on which both the accounts might have been simultaneously accessed or this can be a long persistent and targeted attack - spear phishing in most cases on either the email account that was used to create the twitter handle or directly of the twitter account - on the political party.
He added that he believed that there was more data in the hands of the hackers which they had not put out yet.
He also said that it was Twitter and the owner of the account are responsible for the safety of the account and since only two accounts were hacked, so it might not have been a problem on Twitter’s end.
INC India has posted a new tweet saying “we are back”, after the situation calmed down a bit.
On Thursday morning, Rahul Gandhi’s account posted the below tweet, saying, “I love all my haters,” which seems to be from Gandhi himself.
The Congress has, meanwhile, filed a complaint with the cyber cell of Delhi Police over the hacking of Gandhi’s account.
Delhi Police has initiated a probe and has written to the management of the social media site seeking necessary details.
We have written to Twitter to provide us log details such as the IP address of the hackers. We have started investigating the matter.Senior Police Official
Ministry of Information Technology has taken notice of the situation, and has asked Twitter to submit details of activities of the last 6 days on Rahul Gandhi's account.
Now Rachit Seth’s Twitter Account Hacked
Next in line after Rahul Gandhi and INC’s official account is Rachit Seth in Twitter hacking mayhem in the INC. Seth, who looks after Congress’s communications, had his Twitter account hacked on Thursday evening.
Congress Reacts, Raises Digital Security Issue
The hacking has raised concerns over digital security with the Congress speaking out about it. Rahul Gandhi has reacted to the situation and said:
It’s a huge question mark on digital security.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said this act shows that “free speech and right to disagree in India is under attack by licensed trolls.”
BJP Counters Congress’ Blame Game
Meanwhile, the Congress has accused the BJP to be behind the hacking incidents. "The BJP cannot handle criticism. This is a conspiracy against us," the Congress said, according to CNN News18.
While Congress MP Ahmed Patel has said that the government has assured support to the Congress over the hacking incident, reported India Today.
Countering the Congress’ claims, the BJP asserted that there is no need for them to hack the Congress’ Twitter account. “No one takes Rahul Gandhi or the Congress seriously,” BJP spokesperson Zafar Islam was quoted as saying by CNN News18.
Patel earlier pointed fingers at the government saying amidst the calls for a Digital India, have they ensured safety from hacking.
Reacting strongly on the matter, the Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha termed the incident as a matter of national security. "It is the responsibility of the government to check this," he said.