An investigation has been launched by the Ministry of Defence after British Army social media accounts were hacked at the weekend.

On Sunday 3rd July, unauthorised users gained access to the army’s official Twitter and YouTube accounts, which were then used to promote NFTs and cryptocurrency.

On Twitter, the British Army account display picture was replaced with a cartoon image, and the username was also temporarily changed.

Several tweets which appeared to promote NFTs were then posted by the compromised account, and on YouTube cryptocurrency-related videos featuring Elon Musk were also shared.

Despite the disruption, normal services were restored on both accounts by 9pm.

In a statement confirming the hack, the British Army said: “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.”

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While it remains unclear who was behind the hack, the Ministry of Defence revealed it would launch an official investigation into the incident.

“We are aware of a breach of the Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and an investigation is currently underway. The Army takes information security extremely seriously and is resolving the issue. Until their investigation is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further,” the MoD said in a statement.

In recent years, a number of high-profile social media accounts have been targeted by hackers.

In 2020, several celebrity and corporate accounts were famously compromised and used to promote Bitcoin scams.

Accounts affected at the time included Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and former US President Barack Obama.

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