“Hackers claiming allegiance to the Islamic State took control of the social media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command on Monday, posting threatening messages and propaganda videos, along with some military documents,” Dan Lamothe reports for The Washington Post. “”
“The command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts were eventually taken offline, but not before a string of tweets and the release of military documents, some of which listed contact information for senior military personnel,” Lamothe reports. “A Centcom spokesman confirmed their accounts were “compromised,” and said later that the accounts have been taken offline while the incident is investigated more. ‘CENTCOM’s operation military networks were not compromised and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command,’ a military statement said. ‘CENTCOM will restore service to its Twitter and YouTube accounts as quickly as possible. We are viewing this purely as a case of cybervandalism.'”
“Virtually all of the documents posted appear to already have been publicly available online, but the incident is nevertheless embarrassing to the U.S. military. Centcom oversees the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and frequently posts videos of airstrikes on the same accounts attacked Monday,” Lamothe reports. “The first rogue tweet Monday was posted about 12:30 p.m. and the account was not suspended for about another 40 minutes. The background and profile photo of the Twitter account were both changed to show an apparent militant and the phrases “’CyberCaliphate’ and ‘i love you isis,’ using one of the acronyms for the militant group. ‘AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK,’ one tweet said.”
Read more in the full article here.
I am beggared with disbelief!
To everyone freaking out about this, please read this explanatory XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/932/
This is total B.S. Why in the hell can’t our military get their crap secured. I heard today that ISIS is 15 years ahead of the United States in their computer technology. What in the hell is going on here. We should have our Military Sites secured to the hilt. God knows we waste Billions of dollars on other crap. Those Billions of dollars would be damn nice securing all our computers in our branches of the Military! Wake the hell up you damn politicians in Washington, DC!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YouTube and Twitter accounts were hacked, not the use US military.
the us military had a brain fart on utube and twitter,
went on for years,
I don’t do either
security much? NOT !-)
There is no way that ISIS is 15 years ahead of the U.S. military in terms of computer tech. Even if ISIS had the very late rest computer tech, the U.S. military would have to be using Macs based on the 300MHz G3 or G4 PowerPC CPUs or Windows PCs running on a 500MHz Pentium.
If you want the U.S. military to have secure computers, then you might want to ask your Congressional representatives why they approve the purchase of Windows and Android devices.
The War on Terror has made terrorists stronger, like drug resistant bacteria emerging from haphazard use of antibiotics.
The War on Terror is a war on an idea, making it virtually impossible to win by definition. But that’s the official US position, so the military does the best it possibly can to achieve it.
So US military keeps launching attacks, targeting individuals, infrastructures, and organizations tied to anti-US terrorists, year after year after year. These efforts are largely successful at stopping the easiest to catch, slowest, and least effective terrorists (and they also kill countless civilians in the process). The surviving terrorists are the more clever ones, harder catch ones, that have survived and learned from years of watching the US military killing off their terrorist rivals. The surviving civilians, who perhaps weren’t normally susceptible to anti-US terrorist thinking, now have a some grounded reasons consider it: the US is actually in their country, blowing up their buildings, killing their fathers, and god knows what else. So recruitment of anti-US terrorists is sky rocketing.
The US continues the same failed strategy, years later, never really adapting or changing it much – they just throwing the military at the terrorists, hoping this year it will start working. The terrorists are forced to keep adapting and improving in response to constant US pressure: so now we the world has an entirely new breed of stronger, US-intervention-resistant terrorists.
Plus they’re probably all on PC’s.
I do work for the Navy, and the standard for them has just now moved from Windows XP and IE 7 to Windows 7 and IE 9. Macs are absolute anathema here. The cumbersome ways of doing things that are imposed by Windows are just taken for granted as That’s Just How Things Work. It’s been an interesting experience.
There is no way ISIS is ahead of the United States military in computer technology.
Well that’s what I heard on our local news. Maybe they didn’t have their facts straight. Who Knows!!
I agree clinicaltechmaster! But I have no doubt that ISIS used an off-the-shelf hacker kit, like a boring old dictionary attack, to hack into these accounts. I rant further about it below.
The United States spends more on military than all other nations of the world combined.
And who do you blame for that ridiculous situation?
you.
If you are a US tax payer, you kind of have to blame yourself. Whatever you think intellectually, your tax dollars materially supports war mongers. There’s no easy way to change it, but that’s a legitimate moral dilemma which everyone should consider.
Sounds like the Cyber War is on. How in the world can Windows hope to be the preferred secure OS at this point? (Not that OS X can’t use a little more powah behind ‘er shields Cap’n.)
OK, so:
1) Why is the US military doing ANY social media chatter? Are they nuts? What is the purpose?
2) I’m willing to BET that ISIS hacked into these accounts because, surprise, the passwords used were total crap! If the US military doesn’t already have in hand ALL the dictionary attacks available across the planet, they are seriously stupid. That they would allow ANY member of the US military to use ANY password hackable via a dictionary attack is ludicrous!
Good gawd. #MyStupidGovernment at work as usual.
Thank you ISIS, you a$$holes, for kicking #MyStupidGovernment in the a$$ and making them take notice of their outrageously $tupid behavior.
Yeah I’m ticked! I’m glad you noticed! 😡 😡 😾 😠
WAKE UP! <-📢
Dictionary attacks only work if a server allows hundreds or even millions of incorrect attempts at a password. Any IT guy who doesn’t put a stop-gate on more than 3 incorrect password attempts should be fired.
Totally agree. Knowing Dr. Charlie Miller is in charge of Twitter security, I can’t imagine they haven’t got dictionary attacks totally locked out. Which could make the ISIS hack seem more scary. OR it could make the lameness of the military’s passwords more scary.
I don’t know what Google is using to keep out dictionary attacks on YouTube. I should find out!
Hmmm….”ISIS” did this, did they? Right when Obama was making a speech about cyber-security, did they?
What a crock of horse poo.
I doubt that ISIS did this. First of all, it’s not where the Islamic State in Syria is spending their efforts right now. It’s rather poor that anyone would report the identity claims before verifying them. There are many characters in the world with time on their hands to mess around with Twitter than the Islamic State … an entity which is actually crumbling as we speak.
Just another salvo in the war of terrorists dear free and civilized citizens of the free world. Expect retaliation, we all know it’s eye for eye tooth for two between these two, and with a total lack of ethics and morality on either side, you should also expect that anything goes, immoral invasions, tortures, beheading.
So just keep on eating the popcorn and keep viewing this lose-lose situation.