IT ministry launches probe, Delhi police seeks log details of Rahul's Twitter account
New Delhi: Delhi Police has begun a probe into the hacking of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account and has sought log details of his account from the microblogging site.
"A case has been registered by the Cyber Cell of Economic Offences Wing (EOW) under Section 66 of the IT Act. Twitter has been asked to provide details of log of the account for investigation purpose," said Deependra Pathak, Delhi Police spokesman and Joint Commissioner (SW range).
Also, Lt Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung has been briefed by the police regarding action being taken in this matter, said a senior officer.
Police said they were trying to locate the suspect by tracking the IP address used to break into the official account of the Congress leader.
Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing of the Police around 1 AM , the officer said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has started probe into the hacking. "We are probing the incident (hacking of Gandhi's account)," a MEITY official said.
Gandhi's official account on social media site Twitter was hacked on Wednesday night and again this morning. Miscreants posted some expletives-laden tweets, which were later deleted. The name of the verified Twitter handle "@OfficeOfRG" was also changed.
The official Twitter account of the Congress has also been hacked this morning and a string of unsavoury messages posted.
MEITY's cyber security arm Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) will investigate the matter. CERT-In has authority to collect information stored or communication carried out by any computer in the country for the purpose of cyber security.
Sources at Twitter said there was no security breach at their end, but the accounts may have been compromised through breach of e-mail.
They added that the company was contacted by Congress in the matter but it is yet to receive any communication from the government.
The Congress party has filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police on the hacking of its Vice President's Twitter account.
"Hacking of @OfficeofRG proves lack of digital safety around each one of us. Every digital info can be accessed, altered, morphed and modified," Congress' Chief Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel tweeted, "Those forcing country to adopt online payment overnight, have they taken steps to ensure a/c of ordinary people will be immune from hacking?"
