At least three social media accounts belonging to supporters of the Islamic State group have been traced back to the British government, according to the hacking group VandaSec. The group, which is comprised of four male teenagers, says it discovered that the United Kingdom's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) owns Internet protocol (IP) addresses used by at least three jihadists to access Twitter accounts and conduct online recruitment and propaganda campaigns, reported the Mirror.
The IP addresses, a type of unique identification number that is associated with every computer and mobile phone that logs onto the Internet, appeared to be based in Saudi Arabia, but upon further inspection, the hackers were able to trace them back to DWP's London offices.
"Don't you think that's strange?" one of the hackers asked the Mirror. "We traced these accounts back to London, the home of the British intelligence services."
Some have suggested that British officials could be actively recruiting members for the Islamic State group, while others believe the accounts may have been created by British intelligence services as a honeypot to lure in and bust prospective terrorists, according to RT.
Following the report, DWP claimed that it sold the IP addresses to telecom companies in Saudi Arabia last year and no longer has control over how the addresses are used.
"The government owns millions of unused IP addresses which we are selling to get a good return for hardworking taxpayers," a Cabinet Office spokesperson said, according to the Inquisitr. "We have sold a number of these addresses to telecoms companies, both in the UK and internationally, to allow their customers to connect to the Internet. We think carefully about which companies we sell addresses to, but how their customers use this Internet connection is beyond our control."
It's unclear how the Islamic State group gained access to devices associated with the IP addresses, but as the Daily Beast notes, Saudi Arabia has been accused of supporting the terrorist group.
