MillenniumPost
Delhi

Twitter handle of Traffic Police hacked, restored 30 minutes later

New Delhi: At 11.18 pm on Tuesday, the official Twitter handle of Delhi Traffic Police began showing some unusual activity. It took a couple of tweets for officials to realise that it had been hacked by unknown person minutes before midnight. The situation persisted till 11:54 pm.

One of the tweets posted by the hacked Twitter handle read, "Message me at Twitter.com/justinformentin if you'd like to know how to fix this! "

Another message read: "Not a Traffic Alert. Justin Forementin is tweeting on the Delhi Traffic Police Twitter. Hey guys!"

The last abnormal message was a single full stop from the handle.

On Wednesday, a senior Delhi Police officer said the Twitter handle was hacked for a brief period, but the password was changed within minutes and it's control was restored.

However, the security breach has compelled cops to initiate legal action and rope in the services of Cyber Cell, a unit that now comes under Crime Branch.

The Cyber Cell has already started to work on the breach. "We have forwarded a complaint to the deputy commissioner of police, Cyber Cell and they have launched a probe to identify the hackers," the official added.

Though a probe has been initiated, the way with which hackers have managed to break into official Twitter handle of government agencies is giving nightmares to many.

Tuesday's breach showed how vulnerable even the most secure Twitter handles of the law enforcement agencies are and how easily they can be hackers.

The tweets were neither obscene in nature nor provocative. However, any wrong or misguiding tweets by the handle could have proven fatal, as its over one million followers might have fallen for it.

In the past, many important government websites have also been hacked. In December 2010, the CBI website was hacked, allegedly by 'Pak Cyber Army'. Last year, the NSG was also website was hacked and the hackers posted anti-India literature and pictures.

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