British Army's Twitter and YouTube accounts 'breached' as hackers promote NFTs and cryptocurrency

The British Army has confirmed a "breach" of it its Twitter and YouTube accounts, and said it is investigating.

On Sunday evening, the @BritishArmy handle, which is verified by Twitter, had retweeted a number of posts promoting non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its timeline.

An NFT is a distinct cryptographic token - such as an image, video or text- that cannot be replicated, which acts as a certificate of ownership for virtual items.

The Army YouTube account had been renamed 'Ark Invest' and showed several videos relating to cryptocurrency and images of billionaire business owner Elon Musk.

Ark Invest is the name of a global investment firm. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment submitted via email and the company's website.

At one stage, the Twitter account name was changed to Bapesclan and the profile picture was an ape-like cartoon figure in clownish make-up.

The Twitter account was restored to normal by Sunday evening.

A tweet posted afterwards read: "Apologies for the temporary interruption to our feed. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident. Thanks for following us and normal service will now resume."

The YouTube account also appeared to have its usual videos restored.

An Army spokesperson said: "We are aware of a breach of the Army's Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is under way.

"We take information security extremely seriously and are resolving the issue. Until the investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further."

The army's Twitter feed currently has 362,000 followers, while the YouTube channel has 177,000 subscribers.

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