The Twitter feed and YouTube accounts of U.S. Central Command — which controls all U.S. troops in the Middle East and south Asia — were hijacked Monday by hackers claiming to be from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The attack came as President Obama was at the Federal Trade Commission, announcing that he would push Congress for new legislation to bolster cybersecurity.
“Earlier today, U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube sites were compromised for approximately 30 minutes,” the command said in a statement. “CENTCOM’s operational military networks were not compromised and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command. CENTCOM will restore service to its Twitter and YouTube accounts as quickly as possible. We are viewing this purely as a case of cybervandalism.”
The statement continued: “In the meantime, 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. Additionally, we are notifying appropriate [Defense Department] and law enforcement authorities about the potential release of personally-identifiable information and will take appropriate steps to ensure any individuals potentially affected are notified as quickly as possible.”
On Twitter, the hackers posted a message: “AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS,” and then posted rosters of what appeared to be a list of home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of retired U.S. Army generals, with slides of intelligence collection priorities in China and possible war scenarios on the Korean peninsula.
Hackers also posted pro-jihadi videos on the command’s YouTube account.
Both accounts were deactivated within an hour of being compromised.
The command’s website appeared normal, minus the hacked Twitter feed.
On Sunday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that he was concerned about U.S. cyber vulnerabilities, which persist despite a years-long effort to curb them.
“We don’t have an advantage,” Dempsey said. “It’s a level playing field. And that makes this chairman very uncomfortable.”
This article has been updated.
