New Delhi, Sep 3 (IANS): Ethical hackers on Thursday criticised John Wick after the group claimed responsibility for briefly hacking the Twitter account linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website.

Leading the charge on Twitter, a French ethical hacker who is known by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson said that hacking should be done for a cause, not to serve one's ego.

"It is not worth it. Hacking Twitter accounts in order to write 'Yes, my name is XXX, I'm the best hacker of the world' is stupid. Hacking to serve your ego is worthless. If you hack something, do it for a cause," Alderson said in a tweet.

"PS: I'm able to see the irony of the situation, but I'm really tired of this mentality. Kids want to shine, do stupid (illegal) things, they get theirs headlines in the media and 2 weeks later go to jail," Alderson said in another tweet.

While one user argued that the real John Wick would not have done it, a media report said that "John Wick" is an alias of Elliot Alderson."

"wut? John Wick is not an alias of Elliot Alderson...," Alderson wrote in reply to the report.

Twitter said it was "actively investigating" the situation after the account known as @narendramodi_in was briefly compromised.

"This account is hacked by John Wick (hckindia@tutanota.com), We have not hacked Paytm Mall," John Wick posted after taking over the Twitter account.

The authenticity of the claims could not be immediately verified.

Joining Alderson in chastising John Wick, another Twitter user with the account @_ablil said, "More importantly, do it silently."

"So many people ask me on DM to show my Achievements ....and people gave me some accounts as a target ...i never wanted to show off And my response to them is IGNORE," wrote another person who runs the Twitter account @AnonIndiaPress.