Central
Command Twitter account apparently hacked by CyberCaliphate
The official Twitter account for the United States Central Command — CENTCOM — appears to have been compromised
RT,
12
January, 2015
A
series of tweets were sent from the @CENTCOM account on Monday,
starting with one warning: “AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH
YOUR BACK. ISIS. “
That
tweet and subsequent messages posted in the moments after contain
references to a group known as CyberCaliphate and links to documents
that are purported to be confidential files pilfered from American
military computers, including one cache of files containing
slideshows that appear to include details about apparent threats in
the Caspian, China, North Korea, Africa and Indonesia.
The
account has since been suspended, and White House press secretary
Josh Earnest said shortly after news of the breach surfaced that
"this is something that we're obviously looking into."
In
a statement, CENTCOM said its operational military networks “were
not compromised and there was no operational impact,” promising to
restore its Twitter and YouTube accounts as fast as possible. The
agency added that it is considering the hack “purely as a case of
cybervandalism,” and that no classified information was posted.
Meanwhile,
the FBI announced it is investigating the incident..
Originally,
a statement posted on the website Pastebin shared by the compromised
CENTCOM account announced:
“US
and its satellites kill our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan
we broke into your networks and personal devices and know everything
about you.
You'll
see no mercy infidels. ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in
each military base. With Allah's permission we are in CENTCOM now.
We
won't stop! We know everything about you, your wives and children.
US
soldiers! We're watching you!”
Soon
after, the hacked Twitter account posted a photo that appears to show
United States military personnel surrounded by computers with the
caption: “ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each
military base." Additionally, CENTCOM's YouTube page was also
reportedly compromised.
Another
tweet, linking to what appeared to be a roster of US military
personnel, contained a phone number listed as belonging to Gen. Keith
Alexander, the former chief of both CENTCOM and the National Security
Agency. When dialed, RT reached the office of Admiral Mike Rogers,
Alexander's replacement, and was referred to CENTCOM's public affairs
office where the call then went unanswered.
Last
week, the social media accounts for two American television news
networks were compromised by persons alleging to belong to Cyber
Caliphate — an apparent hacker collective either affiliated or
sympathetic to the military group also known as ISIS, or ISIL. It was
reported at the time that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had
opened a probe into the matter.
News of the CENTCOM breach occurred just moments after US Pres. Barack Obama concluded an address at the Federal Trade Commission headquarters in Washington, DC where he proposed legislation intended to protect the personal information of Americans from hackers. The president said he'll be at the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday this week "to focus on how we can work with the private sector to better defend ourselves from cyberattacks.”
An
hour later at the White House, Earnest cautioned reporters that
there's a "significant difference between what is a large data
breach and the hacking of a Twitter..
Commenting
on the incident later in the day, Alayne Conway, a spokesperson for
the Army's Public Affairs Office, told Motherboard
that some of the documents published on Twitter had come from
password
protected sites.
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