CENTCOM YouTube and Twitter Hacked: ISIS Posts Videos, Tweets 'in the Name of Allah'

ISIS hacked into U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts and began posting threats, documents and propaganda videos. Both accounts have since been suspended.

According to the AFP, as President Barack Obama gave a speech on cybersecurity at the Federal Trade Commission, hackers aligned with the terrorist organization known as ISIS hacked into CENTCOM’s Twitter and YouTube accounts. Although the former was deactivated some 40 minutes after the intrusion, the ISIS hackers, calling themselves the “CyberCaliphate,” uploaded images of documents and made threats against American troops.

“Cybercaliphate is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base," the CyberCaliphate wrote on Twitter.

A now-suspended account claiming to be the CyberCaliphate also posted a link to a PasteBin account with further threats and links.

“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the CyberCaliphate under the auspices of ISIS continues its CyberJihad. While the US and its satellites kill our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan we broke into your networks and personal devices and know everything about you,” the post said, claiming to have hacked the Pentagon.

CENTCOM confirmed to reporters that its accounts had been hacked and they are investigating the matter.

.@CENTCOM response: We can confirm that our twitter account was "compromised. CENTCOM is taking appropriate measures to address the matter."

— Craig Whitlock (@CraigMWhitlock) January 12, 2015

The information posted by the ISIS sympathizers, however, was not classified, as CENTCOM reaffirmed.

DOD tells @NBCNews twitter & Youtube accounts are NOT CLASSIFIED & none of info posted by hackers is classified after cyberattack on centcom — Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) January 12, 2015

Some on Twitter began downplaying the hackers’ feat, since the information they claim to have leaked was publicly available. The BBC confirmed that the images uploaded to the Twitter account were public but could not verify the status of the other documents. 

I swear to god, most of these CENTCOM docs are basically just Model UN crisis scenarios.

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) January 12, 2015

America, tremble before ISIS's unstoppable power to share boring-ass unclassified Powerpoint slides recovered in a daring Google search — Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) January 12, 2015

Nonetheless, the hacking of official accounts used by the U.S. command overseeing the air strikes against ISIS can still be seen as a threat, despite being a minor one. On the YouTube account, which was suspended later than the Twitter account, the hackers posted two ISIS propaganda videos with titles "Flames of War ISIS” and “O Soldiers of Truth Go Forth," The Washington Post reports.

Meanwhile, CENTCOM’s Facebook page remains under military control.