Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris appears to have had his Twitter profile hacked – just weeks after Education Secretary Gillian Keegan’s profile picture changed to an image of Elon Musk without her knowledge.

A series of offensive messages, including racial slurs, were posted from the cabinet minister’s account from around 7am this morning – the first responding to a tweet by former MP Anna Soubry’s account which also seems to have been compromised.

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Mr Heaton-Harris appeared to notice his social media had been compromised, posting: “My Twitter account was hacked this morning, messages not posted by me have now been deleted…”

But the cabinet minister’s account still appears to have been taken over, with another message quickly being sent.

A series of selfies were also posted by an individual who is not Mr Heaton-Harris.

Less than a month ago, Ms Keegan’s Twitter profile sent several posts promoting a cryptocurrency once backed by billionaire Musk.

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The education secretary’s account replied to scores of tweets to promote a fake event hosted by Musk’s companies Twitter and Tesla, claiming that there will be “a special giveaway for all our fans and the crypto community”.

Ms Keegan’s account being exposed came just two months after a phone belonging to former prime minister and foreign secretary Liz Truss was reportedly hacked by Russia.

Agents suspected of working for Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly hacked her personal phone during the summer Tory leadership campaign, gaining access to details of negotiations with key international allies.

Earlier this year, the British Army also fell foul of a hacking scandal.

And last year, it emerged that the mobile phone numbers of both Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab had been listed online for several years.

In both cases, the numbers were publicly available for well over a decade.

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