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Hackers claiming allegiance to the Islamic State took control of the social media accounts of the U.S. militarys Central Command on Monday, posting threatening messages and propaganda videos, along with some military documents.

The commands 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. A Centcom spokesman confirmed their accounts were compromised, and said later that the accounts have been taken offline while the incident is investigated more.

CENTCOMs 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.

Military officials added in the statement that their initial assessment is that no classified information was posted, and that none of what was released came from Centcoms server or social media sites. The command will notify Defense Department and law enforcement authorities about the release of personally identifiable information and make sure that those affected are notified as quickly as possible, Centcom said.

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.

The United States and the Islamic State have waged a propaganda battle online for the better part of a year, after the militants rose to prominence and seized broad swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. Twitter accounts sympathetic to the militants have distributed graphic images of beheadings and other violence along with threats, while the Defense Department and State Department have sought to expose the Islamic State as an oppressive group willing to slaughter innocent men, women and children.

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.

The YouTube and Twitter accounts of U.S. Central Command were suspended after apparent hacking by Islamic State sympathizers. (Reuters)

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the Obama administration is examining and investigating the extent of the incident.

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U.S. military social media accounts apparently hacked by Islamic State sympathizers

An ISIS sympathizer going by the name CyberCaliphate took control of US Central Command's Twitter and YouTube accounts on Monday.

A hacker with a nearly identical signature hijacked the social-media accounts of the Albuquerque Journal and a local TV station in Maryland last week, a possible test run for Monday's far more ambitious act of internet vandalism.

The CENTCOM breach was an asymmetrical attack in the purest sense. It closed the gap between a weak and very limited actor and a much more powerful and numerous opponent.

As The Denver Post recounted after last week's breach of the Albuquerque Journal and a Salisbury, Maryland, TV station, CyberCaliphate couldn't even hack his way past the paywall of New Mexico's Mountain View Telegraph. But single hacker of apparently modest ability was still able to spread propaganda from social-media accounts associated with the commanders of the world's most powerful military.

The optics of it are terrible for the US and the broader effort against ISIS. And in the social-media sphere, optics can mutate into strategic gain. Indeed, the breach was a demonstration of what ISIS and its sympathizers are capable of, and a means of spreading their message even further.

"Nothing released was classified," Robert Caruso, a former Department of Defense special security officer, told Business Insider of documents that CyberCaliphate tweeted from CENTCOM's account: "Which is irrelevant, because they communicated threats to retired generals and admirals. It is a big deal."

Importantly, the attack was not aimed at government computer systems or against CENTCOM. CyberCaliphate chose a much easier target: social-media websites with fewer protections than official networks that are nevertheless used by significant components of the US national-security apparatus.

Twitter

"It's important to draw the distinction between what's called USCENTCOM being hacked and someone compromising the @CENTCOM Twitter account," said Caruso. "Whoever is responsible for this chose an asymmetric approach because they know the United States is still playing catchup in that arena."

Going after social media might show that while official networks are quite secure against anonymous, amateur hackers like CyberCaliphate, there will always be soft targets vulnerable to troublemakers.

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The CENTCOM Twitter Hack On Monday Is A Sign Of Things To Come

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Syahredzan Johan

The Star

Publication Date : 12-01-2015

When the prime minister came back to work after he fell sick with E.coli earlier last week, his Twitter followers knew of his recovery before it was reported in the media as he had tweeted it. In fact, it was his tweet that later became a news report, instead of any statement from his office.

Earlier this year, when the whole nation focused its attention to a high-profile criminal appeal in the Federal Court, Twitter users knew real time what was submitted in Court from the tweets of the people who observed the proceedings. They did not have to wait for news report to find out what happened in the proceedings.

These are some of the examples of how social media has changed the way we obtain information and how we interact with each other.

Before the advent of the Internet, information was monopolised by the State. The State could dictate and control the information that filtered to the masses.

When the Internet happened, this monopoly slowly eroded. First, there were alternative websites, offering information that was different from what you could get in the mainstream. Then came the blogs, which basically allowed the people to share information on the Internet in a form of a journal. But the biggest development was the emergence of social media; with it, everyone can share content.

This perakyatan maklumat, or democratisation of information broke the monopoly of information held by the State. With social media and the Internet revolution, the State is but one of the very many merchants in the marketplace of information.

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Striking the balance on social media

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