U.S. Central Command Twitter Account Hacked

Earlier today the official U.S. Central Command Twitter account was hacked. Apparently this was done by a group claiming to represent ISIS. The compromised account was then used to spread military data but most of it didn’t seem to be sensitive information, according to reports some of the data leaked had already been publicly available, while the rest was just low-level stuff.

Twitter was quick to act on it. The micro-blogging network took nearly 30 minutes to suspend the compromised U.S. CENTCOM account after the first tweets were posted by this group.

An explanation of sorts was offered through a linked Pastebin file which read “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.”

The cyberattack wasn’t limited to the CENTCOM Twitter account. Its official YouTube page was also compromised and three ISIS propaganda videos were also posted on it.

Some of the documents leaked through the compromised Twitter account included preliminary research on strategic targets in North Korea and China, like power plants and major road networks, as well as phone numbers of many officials.

There is an element of irony here. This attack came shortly after President Obama proposed three new laws to safeguard Americans’ data, following the series of devastating cyberattacks in 2014 that left data belonging to millions of Americans at hackers’ mercy.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Military
Tags: cyberattacks, Hacking, Twitter