New Delhi, January 15: The Twitter account of India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Syed Akbaruddin's was hacked on Saturday, raising concerns on national security.  The hacking came to light when two photograph - one of Pakistan's flag and another was the neighbouring country's President Mamnoon Hussain - were posted from Syed Akbaruddin’s official Twitter account. Reports state that the pictures were posted during the wee hours of Sunday and also the "blue tick" that confirms a verified account also disappeared at the time.  Akbaruddin's account was later restored along with the blue tick and the tweets were also removed.

On Sunday, Akbaruddin took to Twitter to express gratitude to all those who helped. “I’m back. It will take more than a hack to keep me down.  Thanks to @TwitterIndia & many others who helped”. As per reports, a tweet in Turkish was posted from his account @AkbaruddinIndia on Saturday. The tweet that was pinned to his account stated, ”You are hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyıldız Tim! We got your DM correspondence! We will show you the power of the Turk! I Love Pakistan”.

Earlier, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had told the Parliament that a total of 199 government websites were hacked in India in 2016. Reports by ANI state that more than 700 websites under the Indian government have been hacked from 2013 to 2016. In 2017, the website of the National Security Guard (NSG), the Indian special forces unit combating terror activities, was also hacked posing an unprecedented threat to national security. Reports state that the website was blocked immediately by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT.IN).

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 15, 2018 11:51 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).