On Wednesday night, the official Twitter account of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi started sending out weird tweets, many of them abusive and obscene.
Meanwhile Rahul (@OfficeOfRG ) Gandhi’s twitter account has been hacked. pic.twitter.com/awWUkrs2YA
— Gupta-G (@DelhiTweeter) November 30, 2016
It is not for the first time that some high profile Twitter account was hacked, the most notorious being the account of news agency Associated Press being hacked, which falsely tweeted about an attack on the White House. That even caused brief panic in the markets.
Recently in the run up to the US Presidential elections, Twitter account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief John Podesta was hacked. There have been many such instances when celebrities or organisations have been targeted by hackers.
Back in India, Rajdeep Sardesai had, in all probability, falsely claimed about his Twitter account being hacked in April this year when he sent out obscene abuses to many users, while recently government’s Chief Economic Adviser’s Twitter account was reportedly hacked, which again we think was more of a case of some malware than hacking.
Basically, hacking of Twitter accounts or emails is not a rare phenomenon. Most of the times it happens due to a user not being alert and aware enough to secure his or her account. Apart from using a strong password, people should use mobile authentication to login and avoid clicking suspicious links. There are many other things you can do such as these to secure yourself online.
One can blame a particular platform if there is mass hacking and credentials of users are leaked in bulk, as has happened on occasions with different websites, but hacking of a single user’s account is more an indictment of that particular user rather than of the platform or the system.
Therefore, if everyone’s Twitter account is safe, but Rahul Gandhi’s account gets hacked, people have to ask the team handling Rahul Gandhi’s online presence rather than attacking Twitter or by extension attacking the digital world.
However, this simple fact was lost, or deliberately missed, by supporters and leaders of the Congress party, who tried to attack everyone and everything for the hacking, except Rahul Gandhi’s office.
These leaders and supporters blamed BJP, Digital India, cashless economy, and even demonetisation because Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account was not secure enough. Look at some of such tweets:
And just imagine, if it’s so easy to hack digital presence of an SPG protected person, how easy it would be to steal your digital money.
— Dr Ajoy Kumar (@drajoykumar) November 30, 2016
Rahul Gandhi’s twitter a/c hacked it shows how vulnerable & susceptible digital world is, govt gunning for digital era.
— Abhijit RoyChowdhury (@royabhijit71) November 30, 2016
@OfficeOfRG account is hacked. #DigitalIndia is on track.
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) November 30, 2016
BJP hacks keep setting a new low every single day.Yet another way 2 display their immense frustration&inability to debate on issues.Shameful
— Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) November 30, 2016
Hacking of@OfficeofRG proves lack of Digital safety around each one of us. Every digital info can be accessed, altered, morphed & modified.
— Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) November 30, 2016
This is called digital India Modi government cannot be stopped #RahulGandhi hack Twitter account what about your digital bank money?@IYC
— Prashant Pawar (@prashantpawar1) November 30, 2016
Phishing, hacking and we are aiming at a digital, cashless economy? Are we even capable of handling cyber threats? What about common ppl?
— Anshu Chhibber (@AnshuChhibber) November 30, 2016
So where these tweets out of political naivety knavery or digital illiteracy?
Or was it all planned? You decide.
My guess: @OfficeOfRG hacking may have been deliberate to try to delegitimise demonetisation.Notice pattern from Cong friendly handles.
— Rupa Subramanya (@rupasubramanya) November 30, 2016
This hacking can be a cheap tactic, to make it look like how unsafe digital world is & going cashless can be risky!
— Dr. Jal Kukdi (@Jal_Kukdi) November 30, 2016
Account hacked since last 1 hour. RG’s team deleting tweets but not changing password or logging out. Yaa its not staged drama. Make sense!!
— Dhaval Patel (@dhaval241086) November 30, 2016
Congress spokies are not at all worried abt recovering Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account,they’re using it to create fear against online banking pic.twitter.com/M9P2zJ6ewe
— Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) November 30, 2016
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