After the hacking of Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account, followed by a breach of the Congress’s account, its website and server, the party deactivated the accounts of 200 leaders because of “suspicious activity” on Thursday evening.
Sources say Congress leaders have been asked to change their passwords and “a full review” is being carried out after the hacking.
According to a Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told NDTV that “Mr Gandhi’s Twitter handle @OfficeOfRG, his email account, the Congress Twitter account, the party’s website and internal server were all hacked between 9.30 pm on Wednesday and 10 am today.”
This evening, sources say, leaders on the Congress server were asked to close their accounts or not use them until there is a detailed security assessment over the next few days.
The government has started an investigation and asked for details of users who have logged on to the accounts in the past week.
“As soon as I heard it last night, I spoke to the IT person in charge,” Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters.
The Congress has alleged that the attack was by “licensed trolls” and reflected “disturbing insecurities of prevalent fascist culture”. The party, however, was asked not to “make a big issue” of the hacking in parliament by Mr Gandhi.