Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account hacked: Lessons to be learned from the compromise

Rahul Gandhi's official Twitter handle – @OfficeOfRG – was hacked on 30 November after it emerged that obscene tweets were being posted by the account. The situation is now under control and Gandhi has restored his access with a tweet directed at his haters.But just a day after the hacking of Gandhi's account, his party's official Twitter account was hacked on 1 December as well. Indian National Congress’s official Twitter account was hacked on Thursday morning. Expletives and abusive tweets were posted on the handle. One of the tweets posted on the account said that a “full dump” of Congress emails will be posted.[caption id="attachment_351005" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Screenshot of one of the many tweets that were shared on @OfficeOfRG after it was hacked[/caption]Blame GameAs it often happens in such cases, political parties quickly start conjectures as to who is responsible. The Congress party started alleging that BJP was behind the hack attacks. According to Firstpost, the Congress has filed a complaint with the cyber cell of Delhi Police on the hacking of its vice-president's Twitter account, by the party's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, demanding strict action against those behind the hacking.While the case is being investigated, it has emerged that the @OfficeOfRG was accessed using Rahul Gandhi's official email ID, the servers of which are located in Bengaluru.Cyber security expert and consultant with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) Rakshit Tandon says that it seems like a case of phishing attack.Phishing could be a possible reasonPhishing uses social engineering to attack the victim. The modus operandi is simple. Hackers create fake email accounts which look genuine and as though they have come from a social media site, in this case. They have messages such as, "It looks like your account was hacked." Or, "Someone tried to login in to your account from