Former soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has denied rumours of his death after hackers sent false alerts from the Twitter accounts of a state news agency, Sky News reported on Thursday.
‘I’m alive and well,’ Gorbachev said on Wednesday night. His denial came after state news agency RIA Novosti’s two Twitter accounts posted reports of the death of Gorbachev, the first and last president of the Soviet Union.
The agency said they had been subject to a cyber attack by hackers and the tweets were spotted and deleted within five minutes of being posted.
The messages were not the most convincing, one said ‘Mikhail Gorbachev has died in the Shoko cafe in Yekaterinburg,’ while another said ‘he had died while talking to opposition politician Yevgeny Roizman’.
Gorbachev, 82, has suffered health problems lately. In June, his spokesperson said he was undergoing diabetes treatment while in April he was not well enough to travel to former British PM Margaret Thatcher’s funeral in London.
‘I’m alive and well,’ Gorbachev said on Wednesday night. His denial came after state news agency RIA Novosti’s two Twitter accounts posted reports of the death of Gorbachev, the first and last president of the Soviet Union.
The agency said they had been subject to a cyber attack by hackers and the tweets were spotted and deleted within five minutes of being posted.
The messages were not the most convincing, one said ‘Mikhail Gorbachev has died in the Shoko cafe in Yekaterinburg,’ while another said ‘he had died while talking to opposition politician Yevgeny Roizman’.
Gorbachev, 82, has suffered health problems lately. In June, his spokesperson said he was undergoing diabetes treatment while in April he was not well enough to travel to former British PM Margaret Thatcher’s funeral in London.