US Central Command Twitter account hacked by ‘pro-Islamic State’ group

The Twitter and YouTube accounts of the US military command were hacked by a group claiming to back the Islamic State on Monday.

The account, @CENTCOM, tweeted out messages threatening attacks on US military personnel and expressing sympathy for Isis.

Other messages indicated that the hackers had captured military secrets, but the documents which were disseminated contained widely available and non-official information. One of the documents appeared to show slides developed by the MIT’s  Lincoln Laboratory, a state funded research centre focused on technology and national security. The disseminated slides appeared to outline possible scenarios for U.S conflict with North Korea and China.

“American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back!” read one tweet. “Isis is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base,”” read another one.

The account’s Twitter avatar was replaced with an image of a masked militant and the words “CyberCaliphate” and “I love you Isis.”

Meanwhile, the US Central Command’s YouTube channel hosted two pro-Islamic State videos.

Embarrassingly, the hack occurred while US President Barack Obama was delivering a speech in Washington urging greater cyber-security for online shoppers.

Centcom’s Twitter account was suspended less than an hour after the hijacked tweets began to appear. The YouTube channel was taken down for “community guideline” violations.

It remains unclear how the hackers managed to obtain access. Major Andrew Aranda, a spokesman for the Central Command, said they were looking into the cause of the compromised accounts.

Pentagon spokeswoman, Commander Elissa Smith, said that the military was taking unspecified “appropriate measures to address the matter”.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest played down comparisons with the recent hack of Sony, allegedly by North Korean hackers.

“There’s a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account,” he said.

The Central Command, one of the US military’s five regional commands, has been conducting frequent air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since August. Ahead of the Monday hacking, it announced 16 new air strikes in both countries.