Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts

Some Twitter love this.
Some Twitter love this.
Image: Reuters/Anindito Mukherjee
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A day after Rahul Gandhi’s official Twitter account was hacked by a group that calls itself “legion,” the Indian National Congress’ handle came under attack on Dec. 01.

Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter

Even as Gandhi himself took a conciliatory tone in response to the previous night’s havoc, “legion” kept posting disparaging tweets from the INC handle.

Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter

“Legion” finally said it had no political agenda.

Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Screenshot from Twitter

On Nov. 30, it had taken over Rahul Gandhi’s account, changing its name and posting derogatory statements against him, the Gandhi family, and the Congress party.

Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Twitter
Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Twitter

According to some of the tweets posted by the group on Rahul Gandhi’s account, its goal is to expose wrongdoings by the Congress and “unleash” data.

Image for article titled Hackers are making a joke of India’s Congress party and its leaders by taking over their Twitter accounts
Image: Twitter

The tweets from this account were deleted on Wednesday night but it wasn’t clear whether this was done by the hackers themselves or by Gandhi’s social media team. The Congress party on Dec. 01 filed a complaint with the cyber cell of city police over the hacking.

A Twitter India spokesperson declined to comment, saying, “As a company policy we do not comment on hacking of individual handles no matter how prominent the handles are.”

Also read: Guess who Rahul Gandhi’s worst enemy was on Wednesday: his own verified Twitter account