The U.S. Central Command that supervises operations in the Middle East had to compromise their Twitter and YouTube account for 30 long minutes as they were brutally hacked on Monday (12th January 2015) by people demanding to be sympathetic toward the Islamic State militant group being targeted in American bombing raids.
The note posted by the hackers on the U.S. Central Command Twitter feed read “American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back, ISIS”.
U.S defense officials however mentioned that operational military networks were not compromised and no heavy data breach occured.
The attackers used the term “CyberCaliphate” to define themselves. Although no technical information leakage occured, U.S Central Command officials call this incident “severely disturbing”.
The hackers changed the heading of the U.S. Central Command Twitter account into a figure in a black-and-white head scarf and put up the words “CyberCaliphate” and “I love you ISIS.”
Their YouTube account was also hacked to add two videos titled “Flames of War ISIS Video” and “O Soldiers of Truth Go Forth.”
The FBI said on Monday that they are investigating the hacking incident. “Assaults from cyber-jihadists will become more common unless the administration develops a strategy for appropriately responding to these cyberattacks, including those like the North Korea attack against Sony,” said the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Republican Michael McCaul of Texas.
This comes as a serious warning to all the Intelligence Troupes across the world and also proves the growing prowess of the hacking community.
We see…the cyberspace needs serious and immediate shielding!!
