A government agency poised to tax digital assets had a real change of heart yesterday – at least for awhile.
For the second time in a week, a government agency went off mission on Twitter, this time with the Revenue Department suddenly promoting NFTs, which it says was the work of hackers.
“I’m looking to collaborate with NFT projects,” the @RevenueDept’s pinned tweet read for awhile in English. “DM if you’re interested in a paid promotion!”
Until some time this morning, the account had been renamed “Revenue | NFT” and its profile picture changed to a cartoon monkey derived from a series of NFT images called Bored Ape Yacht Club. Rather than a platform for mundane tax matters, the account was rebranded as an “NFT Promoter and Enthusiast” in its bio.
The Revenue Department later warned on social media this morning that people shouldn’t trust any information shared during the change in administration. No one had publicly taken credit for the attack.
Some online linked the hack to the department’s announced plans to levy a 15% capital gains tax on NFT trades.
“This comes after the department announced plans to collect a 15% capital gains tax on #crypto trades,” Reuters correspondent Chayut Setboonsarng tweeted.
Rather than post photoshopped celebrities and big wangs, as happened Thursday to state broadcaster NBT, whoever had control of the account reportedly deleted all of the agency’s official tweets. They have since been recovered.
The actual monkey image featured, as pointed out by others online, was from the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, a fork of the original Bored Ape Yacht Club’s 10,000 unique pictures of said monkeys now worth billions of dollars.
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Whereas the term “hackers” may elicit images of elite cipher breakers, Thailand’s consistently unsophisticated IT practices leave many systems wide open to elementary attacks.
As of Monday morning, the department had regained control of the account. It said it was working with the authorities to track down the hackers.
Maybe they should consider reinstalling “cyber security,” as state mouthpiece NBT World did to thwart future attacks.
Correction: This story was updated to note the correct provenance of the cartoon monkey in question.
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