Check Point cyber-security evangelist, Derek Middlemiss commented : “The hacking of the Indian Prime Minister’s Twitter account indicates that coordinated social engineering attacks are fast becoming a norm. We’ve now seen several instances of these attacks on Twitter, such as the celebrity accounts hacked in July this year. Twitter has long been the de facto platform for people with the coveted blue check-mark, such as politicians, journalists, executives, and celebrities who make news and shape culture. It is primarily that large-scale influence that makes the social media platform such an attractive target for hackers.

“It’s important to understand that Twitter is not the only social media platform at high risk of cyber-attacks. WhatsApp and TikTok, for example, are equally at high risk. With so much traction, data, and speed of information travel, hackers can design some of the most sophisticated cyber-attacks to execute on the masses. In the past, Check Point researchers discovered security flaws on both WhatsApp and TikTok. The truth is that end users are the weakest link.

“To stay safe, users of Twitter and other social media platforms should install anti-virus software and email filters. These will block sophisticated phishing attacks and prevent lateral cyber-attacks within an organization by scanning and blocking internal threats in real time. Social media users should also double check a website’s security before entering any sensitive information by looking for a URL that begins with "https" and properly spells the name out of the website, which indicates that a site is secure.”