Maldives Police Service, on Thursday, confirmed that the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Tourism was hacked and that the matter was under investigation.
Several criticisms of the government’s COVID-19 response efforts were tweeted from the ministry’s account after it was hacked.
Notably, the perpetrators criticized the state’s supposed failure to utilize foreign aid for the benefit of Maldivian citizens and demanded that the public be informed of how these funds were being spent.
Furthermore, the police also confirmed a large scale cyberattack against frontline workers, particularly doctors, via messaging application WhatsApp.
The police have urged frontline workers against clicking suspicious links or forwarding codes and passwords, warning that these cyberattacks were often carried out from duplicated accounts posing as a contact of the intended victim.
ATTENTION ALL DOCTORS & frontliners during #COVID19Maldives:
Many people are receiving links through WhatsApp with a code message from their contacts. DO NOT CLICK on suspicious links even if it’s from a contact! Those are cyber attacks coming from duplicated profiles. 1/2
— Maldives Police (@PoliceMv) May 14, 2020
Additionally, the police are conducting investigations into the hacking of Health Protection Agency (HPA)’s the official website, a vital local source of information amid the virus outbreak.
On May 3, hackers claiming to be associated with hacktivist collective Anonymous momentarily overtook the HPA website and left a cryptic message for the president.
Full details are available at the link below:
Source URL: Google News
