The Russian Foreign Ministry's Twitter account was hacked

Hackers hijack the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Twitter and sell travel payment data it holds for $ 600,000.

The status line was posted by a hacker on a Twitter account of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

@MID_travel - the official Twitter account of the Crisis Processing Center under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia usually only posts information from the Russian government or embassies as well as warns and gives advice to Russian citizens Be safe abroad. However, on July 2, this account suddenly posted a status line for sale of a database for 66 bitcoin ($ 600,000).

The hacker said he was holding detailed information about travel payments made in June 2020 of the Russian Public Service Portal. Anyone who pays the aforementioned amount will receive all of this data.

The Russian Foreign Ministry regained control of the account the same day and posted a status saying that the previous information was all a scam. "The information published on July 2 of this account is fake and they have nothing to do with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The account is now functioning properly," the statement said.

Forbes contacted Twitter and the Russian government's press department in the US but could not confirm the hacked account information.

According to Grahamcluley, the hacked @MID_travel account could be due to the administrator's loophole in information security, being the victim of a phishing attack or simply revealing a password. In addition, there is no reliable information that the hacer actually holds the payment data of the Russian Public Service Portal.