CENTCOM: ISIS Hack an Act of ‘Cybervandalism,’ No Security Breach

An alarming hack of U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts by ISIS sympathizers was probably not as alarming as it appeared, the Department of Defense said in a statement released today.

“CENTCOM’s operational military networks were not compromised and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command,” they said. “We are viewing this purely as a case of cybervandalism.”

The vandalism, which saw their social media accounts defaced by people declaring affiliation with the “CyberCaliphate of ISIS,” promising to leak things like classified documents, and posting scary ISIS propaganda videos. It became apparent rather quickly, however, that nothing as sophisticated as a Pentagon security breach had occurred, and CENTCOM was able to quickly reclaim their accounts. (Exhibit A: the hackers leaked publicly available documents.)

“Our initial assessment is that no classified information was posted and that none of the information posted came from CENTCOM’s server or social media sites,” Central Command wrote, promising to notify anyone who actually had their information leaked.

In related news, this XKCD comic has been making the rounds today.

The full statement is below:

In its latest statement on the hack, CENTCOM says they are viewing it "purely as a case of cybervandalism." pic.twitter.com/N0AH4OXpS1

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) January 12, 2015

[h/t Hunter Walker]
[Image via Twitter]

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