ISIS ‘Cyber Caliphate’ hacks US military’s Twitter and YouTube accounts

13 Jan 2015

A hacker group called Cyber Caliphate, claiming to be associated with rebel group ISIS, last night seized control of the Twitter and YouTube accounts of @CENTCOM, US Central Military Command.

The hackers defaced the @CENTCOM Twitter account and linked to a message in Pastebin.

In the message posted in Pastebin the hackers wrote: “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 hackers went on to post data from army mobile devices ostensibly to prove it had access to military data.

CENTCOM confirmed the hacking: “We can confirm that CENTCOM Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised earlier today. We are taking appropriate measures to address the matter. We have no further information to provide at this time.”

Central Command said that the sites were compromised for approximately 30 minutes.

It said the sites were not connected to US Department of Defense websites.

At the time of writing both sites were restored to their original settings. CENTCOM said it is working with law enforcement agencies to get to the bottom of the hack.

US military image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com