The British army has reported a "breach" of its YouTube and Twitter accounts and revealed that it is conducting an investigation.
Its Twitter account had the title "BAPESCAN" instead of the British Army and a profile image of a monkey with face paint that appeared to be a cartoon.
Its previous description read: "Follow us for updates on deployments, training exercises, ceremonial responsibilities, and regimental activities. Recruiting @armyjobs candidates for the#1 metavesto clan on the ETH chain with multi-billion dollar experience. The site is powered by @chaintchlabs."
Even after the British army account reverted to its original name and description, it continued to retweet items about non-fungible tokens or digital artworks that appeared to be the work of hackers. Sunday evening at 8.30 p.m., these retweets were still on the army's Twitter account.
According to reports, the British army's YouTube channel has been replaced with an account titled Ark Invest and its logo.
It looked to be promoting a putative cryptocurrency interview with Tesla founder Elon Musk. Ark Invest is a worldwide investing company. There is no indication that it was involved in the violation. It is unknown who is responsible for the hacks.
A representative for the army stated, "We are aware of a breach of the army's Twitter and YouTube accounts, and we are conducting an inquiry."
The Army representative added that they take information security very seriously and are currently working to resolve the situation. "It would be improper to discuss further until the investigation has been concluded," the representative said.
Later, the official account tweeted, "We apologize for the temporary interruption in our broadcast. We will investigate this situation thoroughly and learn from it. Thank you for your patience; usual service will resume."
Earlier, Conservative MP Michael Fabricant tweeted, "How awful. @BritishArmy Twitter account has been hacked. Not by the Russians, I do not believe!"
It was revealed in April that the United Kingdom's computerized army recruitment system had been offline since mid-March.
It was briefly shut down as a precaution after data pertaining to approximately 120 military recruits was discovered for sale on the dark web.
It was unclear whether a hack had occurred or if someone had obtained a screenshot or print out.
Following the breach of a small number of recruit data, the army's online recruitment services were temporarily blocked pending an inquiry, according to a British army spokesperson at the time. It was eventually restored.
