NEW DELHI: The government has issued notice to Twitter over the recent hacking of accounts of its global high-profile users and “any possible impact” of the breach in India. The notice was sent by CERT-In, the country’s nodal cyber security agency, which asked Twitter for full details of the hacking incident.
CERT-In swung into action after reports revealed that hackers had gained access to Twitter’s systems to sneak into the accounts of many global corporate leaders, politicians, celebrities and businesses.
CERT-In has also asked Twitter for information on the number of users from India who have clicked on the malicious tweets and links, and whether the affected users have been informed by the micro-blogging site about the “unauthorised access” to their accounts. The government has also demanded information on the “vulnerability” exploited by the attackers and the modus operandi of the intrusion. It has also sought details of remedial actions taken by Twitter.
Twitter has not yet commented on any possible attack in India. However, in a blog post, it mentioned the steps it had taken against the ‘incident’. “The most important question for people who use Twitter is likely — did the attackers see any of my private information? For the vast majority of people, we believe the answer is, no,” it said.
Twitter said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack. It, however, added that the attackers “were able to view personal information, including email addresses and phone numbers… In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information.”