The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and other related matters (NAPTIP)’s Twitter account was hacked by suspected fraudsters late on Monday. NAPTIP’s official handle, @naptipnigeria, which has been its primary outlet on the microblogging site since 2013, was seen with links to YouTube videos purporting to teach bitcoin trading, PUNCH reports. This is thought to be the work of hackers who gained access to the backend of renowned individuals’ and organisations’ social media accounts to market their merchandise to an unsuspecting public.
Eight hours earlier, the agency had tweeted a brief video clip with the following caption: “In a bid to encourage members of the public to participate in the fight to #endhumantrafficking we have launched CONVERSATION with NAPTIP – an online interactive platform to periodically interact with the general public on burning issues relating to Human Trafficking & SGBV.”
But at 08:13 pm Monday, NAPTIP tweeted a cryptocurrency-themed YouTube video link with the caption, “Crypto holders, check this out!”
Hacking of public figure accounts on Twitter is not unusual. For instance, hackers breached the Twitter accounts of former US President Barack Obama, current US President Joe Biden, hip hop artist Kanye West, and billionaires, Bill Gates and Elon Musk in July 2020. The hackers tweeted identical messages to what was posted on NAPTIP’s account which reads: “I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back double! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes.”
The message was described as a scam by the spokespersons for the affected public figures. However, thousands of followers had taken the bait at the time. As of the time of this report, a recheck on NAPTIP’s account by Easterner showed the post had been deleted which suggested that the account might have been recovered by the agency.
