Cricket South Africa's Twitter account hacked overnight

ICC was quick to acknowledge the mishap.

Published - 14 Jan 2019, 13:43 IST | Updated - 14 Jan 2019, 13:43 IST

3 Min Read

The official Twitter account of Cricket South Africa (CSA) was hacked early on Monday. A couple of compromised tweets related to selling the bitcoin lottery from CSA’s account led to the World Cricket body International Cricket Council (ICC) acknowledge the same. However, the South African board has recovered the account now and has also apologised its followers for the mishap.

It all started at 4.20 AM IST on Monday as the hacked account CSA’s partnering with the South African bitcoin lottery also informing that it closes on January 15. Two more tweets also surfaced regarding the same topic around 9.30 AM IST before the issue was resolved by 11.30 AM according to the Indian time zone.

ICC acknowledging the mishap

Earlier, it was the ICC’s official Twitter account took the initiative to inform its followers that the CSA account was hacked. “Please be aware that the @OfficialCSA Twitter account has been compromised. Our friends in South Africa are working hard to resolve the situation quickly. Please do not click on any links or engage with the account until such time as this is rectified,” the tweet read.

Even the ICC’s Digital Content Manager, Alistair Hogg, also went on to say that the social media service to solve the issue at the earliest. “Their account was compromised overnight. We are working with Twitter to sort it out,” Hogg tweeted in reply to one of the users.

Here are the spam tweets:

Here’s ICC’s tweet acknowledging the mishap:

🚨 Please be aware that the @OfficialCSA Twitter account has been compromised. Our friends in South Africa are working hard to resolve the situation quickly.
Please do not click on any links or engage with the account until such time as this is rectified. pic.twitter.com/wJmk2v4sWg
— ICC (@ICC) January 14, 2019

Back to the cricketing action

However, after recovering the account CSA was delighted to announce the same to its fans. Their latest tweet is about the fourth day’s play of the third Test between South Africa and Pakistan in Johannesburg as the match is interestingly poised. The home team needs only seven wickets to whitewash Sarfaraz Ahmed and his men while Pakistan is 228 runs behind to script a famous victory.

Here’s the latest tweet:

And… we're back!
Apologies to all our Twitter followers who were affected by the hack overnight. We are back in control & ready to bring you what promises to be an even more eventful Day 4 of Test cricket.
Thank you to our friends at the @ICC for your assistance this morning. pic.twitter.com/9z6KSBvB94
— Cricket South Africa (@OfficialCSA) January 14, 2019