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Updated 7.20am
THE TWITTER ACCOUNT for US Central Command (CentCom), the arm of the Pentagon which handles the Middle East, was broken into today by hackers declaring sympathy for Islamic State.
The hacking comes as President Barack Obama was giving a speech on cyber security. The military was forced to take down its Twitter feed after the attack but the Pentagon played down the incident saying it it amounted to little more than digital vandalism and that no sensitive military computer networks were penetrated.
“Centcom didn’t get hacked. Twitter got hacked,” Colonel Steven Warren told reporters.
“It’s important to keep this whole thing in perspective. This is little more than a cyber prank. It’s an annoyance,” he said. “It in no way compromises our operations.”
Some of the tweets contained the personal details of high-ranking officers and soldiers, specifically threatening the wives and children of military personnel.
One tweet warned US soldiers to ‘watch their back’.
It said that the while the US “and its satellites kill our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan” they “won’t stop”.
It claimed that the hackers “know everything about your wives and children”.
Another tweet claimed to contain the details of US intelligence on North Korea. However US officials later said none of the information posted was classified and most of the documents are already publicly available.
The image below had appeared previously on the website of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based non-profit organization dedicated to preventing nuclear war.
The hackers appeared to have used screen shots on defence-related topics from other websites, giving the impression that they had stolen secret documents, officials said.
Some of the documents were labelled “FOU,” or ‘for office use only’, which refers to Defence Department documents that are not top secret or classified but normally treated as confidential.
The hacked Twitter feed posted what appeared to be an office phone directory of officers, which was slightly out of date, as well what appeared to be a personal photo taken by troops handling a goat in an office.
CentCom’s YouTube page was also been taken over, with ISIS videos being posted.
It came as US President Barack Obama was giving a speech on the issue of cybersecurity.
After the incident today, White House spokesman John Earnest told reporters they the extent of the incident is being examined but pointed out again that there is “a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account”.
- With reporting from AFP and Michelle Hennessy. First published 12 January
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I can’t imagine that a Twitter account contains too many state secrets all the same. Hack away boyos
They should have put up -
“This is your commander-in-chief I order immediate withdrawl of troops and to be carried under the strictest silence. No further communication until back on American soil !
Ignore all orders to remain at current posting.
God Bless America.
In God we trust ! “
That’s too many characters for twitter
Who knows if you hack into a twitter account you might be able to send two messages ….
Oh conspiracy theorists check the number of characters in the hack above -
Thanks dtstaffx – look what you are after doing now – and I was only havin’ a bit of craic ..
Mass troop withdrawl by twitter is the stuff of a Peter Sellers movie …Everyone knows that .
Calm down Dermot. Sure I was only having a bit of craic myself. Lighten up dude, it’s just the Internet!
I was only being the same way …. having a go at conspiracy theory among other things ….
Wait.
We’re on the Internet?!
Id say there are a fair few characters on Twitter all the same though…
..
( sorry.. dunno whats wrong with me today)
“Who the hell chose ‘Password1′ as the password to the account??”
I just heard that the new password is Password_2 ..
The underscore is found to increase safety by a factor of 200,000% so there is now no way of hacking in.
But shhhhhh – Top Secret – don’t tell anyone .
Ironic that they call Allah “the most merciful”?
It’s like poking a stick at a sleeping lion
the lion cub is the one poking the stick
Frank your a gas man..you reminde of Mel Gibson’s character in the movie Conspiracy Theory
Note to self ;-
Don’t burgle Frank’s House !
Did you see the dates of Napoleon crowning himself question Frank ?
Jokes aside_ Obama is using every excuse to push through the CISPA bill..
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7271/7099106561_8ddf80db4a_z.jpg
i don’t get it, why would the CIA hack into the pentagon?
There is a report that they hacked into Congress – They may have had their reasons so I won’t judge them but internal security is without their remit …
From Head Hacking to Cyber Hacking…
I wonder does Frank come home every evening, turn on his PC and goes through all the conspiracy theory websites, before going to news websites and adding up the dates of events to see if they match up to 33 or 13.
Pepperoni Playboy. You get all that information on a plate in the mainstream media so why bother trawling through conspiracy sites?.
They corrupt Western elite deliberately encode their false flags around the numbers.
I liked this stuff better when it was just in 24.
This all seems a little contrived and suspicious. It’s a bit unconvincing.
We’re meant to be shocked with this story from America but overlook reports that we ourselves are being spied upon -
Some how I think we will worry about them both equally !
It’s just a twitter account I’d imagine the US military has their own communications network. The map scenarios were only from a publicly funded think tank. It’s nothing more than an attempt to just put fear in to people hardly think a countries secrets and confidential information is going to be on a social media account. This is only gonna further divide people in the west from muslims it’s starting in France and Germany, purely just because of hard liners.Living in a democracy means free speech whether you like it or not. The more this continues generally people in the west will revolt against this. Ultimately it seems that religion still divides us even today maybe now more than ever before it’s probably been a long time coming with the whole globalization thing really picking up pace over the past 10-15 years. Maybe we can all live in peace but at the end of the day are our cultures just too different to intergrate?
It’s ok IS, you bunch of knuckle dragging goat f******. You will all meet your 72 raisins soon enough
ISIS attacking the Pentagon?
This does not make any sense.
As they say, this is all going somewhere, the West asleep!!
It could have been a couple of teenagers with a wry sense of humour , or it could be Kim pressing the wrong button on his PlayStation again ….
The serious side though is that far too much information power is held by commercial gatekeeper companies like twitter and facebook inside the web, rather than the individuals being in control of it.
For example you can’t comment on this website without a twitter or facebook account.
Get access to a large number of prime govt agency or news feeds at once, and you could cause quite a bit of trouble indeed. Dr. Strangelove needs a remake…
I love these stories they remind me of people accusing me of having a fake twitter account and I say I just use it to post here – Not blaming Twitter , but if the greatest security force in the world can be hacked then who can be safe ?
(Adjusts Tinfoil hat to slant slightly over the eye .)
Somebody was at a party and left their phone there still logged into Twitter
Whaddya ya know. Allahs’ gone digital.
its getting funny how obvious the stunts are getting of late. we are meant to believe that a group armed and funded by the same countries who looked to invade syria have the technical skills needed to cyberattack the most powerful country in the world.
more and more people are not getting their news from traditional sources like tv, newspaper etc. they are getting it online and that is a trend that will only increase. many are turning to alternative news channels that offer both sides of the debate. those in charge have lost control of the narrative and would very much like regulations to help them take it back.
propaganda stunts like the sony hack, celebrity hacks,this one and many others will help them do this. problem, reaction,solution. that is 1 of the agendas at play.
its not another fake hacking story is it..?
……….If it quacks like a duck then….
has this been confirmed by intelligence yet..?
A nine year old computer savy kid could have feckin done this I am really trying to understand how this makes major news it’s nearly as credible as them pre-pubescent clowns that call themselves the lizard squad d-dossin psn & Xbox live it’s jus a flipping program u run anyone can do it as long as there smart enuf to proxy there stuff in the right way not to get caught…
I wouldn’t be surprised if the password for the account was Watergate1972
A feeble effort by Isis and shows how they total forces can only crack a pathetic twitter account and post already available Intel under the guise of top secret info… The embarrassment and the shame…. Go hide under a rock lads and await ur hunters…. Ha ha pathetic
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