British Army hit by cyber-attack as Twitter account retweets about ape-themed NFTs

3 July 2022, 19:26 | Updated: 3 July 2022, 21:40

The British Army was hit by a cyber attack, with its Twitter account retweeting a series of bizarre posts about non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The hijacked account had its profile picture and account name changed several times.

At one point the profile photo was a monkey wearing face paint.

The cyber attack has also affected the British Army's YouTube account.

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Control of the account was regained just before 9.30pm when the Army has apologised for the "temporary interruption" to its feed.

A tweet posted on the official account said: "Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident.

"Thanks for following us and normal service will now resume."

The Ministry of Defence earlier said it was "aware" of the situation and was investigating.

It added that security was taken "extremely seriously".

The British Army's Twitter account was flooded by a series of retweets encouraging followers to enter competitions to win NFTs - digital artworks that represent real-life assets such as music and videos.

"We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is underway," said the MoD.

"The Army takes information security extremely seriously and is resolving the issue.

"Until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further."