This week has been high-tension for Americans and Muslim communities. With the Charlie Hebdo shootings, the Hamburger Morgenpost firebombing and the numerous conversations about radical vs. moderate Islam, Islamic terrorists have been at the forefront of the news. Now, on the day that President Obama planned to announce two new cybersecurity proposals, a number of Pentagon-centric social media accounts were hacked by Islamic hackers.
At 12:29 p.m. Monday, a pro-Islamic State (ISIS) group called the Cyber Caliphate hacked the U.S. Central Command's Twitter and Youtube accounts. The group released a number of personnel files onto Twitter as well as photos of U.S. military, stating that they had access to their computers.
However, a quick look at the files shows that they weren't as confidential as they may seem. Security reporter Blake Sobczak notes on Twitter that the files that the Cyber Caliphate "shared" were not top Sscret. For example, the maps of nuclear facilities in North Korea can be found here at fas.org.
Bernie Lubell of NBC News asked a Department of Defense official about the hacks, who said "this is clearly embarrassing, but not a security threat." Air Force Colonel Patrick S. Ryder, Central Command's spokesman, told Bloomberg that "we are taking appropriate measures to address the matter."
The Cyber Caliphate has been in the news before. Last week, the group hacked a number of local news outlets' Twitter accounts and posted confidential information, including driver's licenses, social security cards and correction records. The group also claimed that it had hacked into the FBI database, but the claim hasn't been confirmed.
