South Africa cricket team handle was compromised on Monday morning IST. (Source: AP) South Africa cricket team handle was compromised on Monday morning IST. (Source: AP)

The official Twitter account of South African cricket board (OfficialCSA) was compromised overnight resulting in multiple tweets trying to sell bitcoin lottery. It all began at 4.20 AM IST on Monday with the tweet stating, “@OfficialCSA is partnering with @lunomoney for the fist South African Bitcoin Lottery. Simply send 0,01 BTC to 13My18T92DCzGdrtiCgRuS32T6rFLjnG56 and your BTC Wallet Address will be entered into a BTC Lottery for 20BTC (That’s Over R1Mil). Lottery closes at 15 Jan @ 10PM.” with two more tweets around the topic. The compromised nature and spam tweets continued in the morning with two more post 9 AM in the Indian time zone.

The issue seemed to have been resolved at 11.23 AM IST when Cricket South Africa tweeted, “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.”

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

World cricket body ICC had acknowledged the account was compromised and asked the users not to engage with the Twitter handle until fixed and erroneous tweets deleted. “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,” wrote ICC in the tweet. Meanwhile, Alistair Hogg, Digital Content Manager at ICC, also shared that they reached out to the social media service to sort out the issue. He wrote in reply to a user, “Their account was compromised overnight. We are working with Twitter to sort it out.”

First instance of spammed tweet came at 4.20 AM IST. First instance of spammed tweet came at 4.20 AM IST.

The spam tweets continued a few hours later. The spam tweets continued a few hours later.

The spam tweets continued a few hours later. The spam tweets continued a few hours later.

🚨 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) 14 January 2019

On the field of play, South African cricket team will take the field in Johannesburg on Monday against Pakistan in the third Test. Pakistan go into the fourth day’s play needing 228 runs to win while Proteas need 7 wickets to inflict the clean sweep. South Africa had won the opening two Tests of the three-match series.

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