Earlier today, President Obama was giving a speech to the Federal Trade Commission about the need for more and better cybersecurity. At the same time, the US Central Command’s social media accounts were hacked by a group of Islamic State supporters.
The group, which calls itself the CyberCaliphate, posted its first tweet from the CentCom Twitter account at about 12:30 pm EST, which said “AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS.”
Included in the tweet was a link to a document which began with the same warning. It continued,
“In the In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the CyberCaliphate under the auspices of ISIS continues its CyberJihad. While the 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.
U.S. soldiers! We’re watching you!”
The document also included four links to what the hackers claim to be “confidential data” from mobile devices and concluded, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet! There is no law but Sharia!”
CentCom acknowledged in a statement that its Twitter account had, in fact, been “compromised,” and that it was “taking appropriate measures to address the matter,” but did not give any details as to if they believe the Islamic State is really behind the cyber attack, according to the Washington Post.
CentCom’s YouTube page was also hacked, and two Islamic State propaganda videos were uploaded.
As of 2:15 pm EST, CentCom’s Youtube page had been removed, and the Twitter account had been suspended.
CyberCaliphate has also taken credit for similar hacks against a Maryland television station and an Albuquerque newspaper.