ISIS-affiliated hackers breached the U.S. Central Command's Twitter and YouTube accounts in April 2015, posting threats and personal contact details. Identity theft expert Robert Siciliano explains a CENTCOM employee likely fell for a phishing attack. The Pentagon suspended the accounts and confirmed no classified material was stolen.
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Hackers claiming to be working on behalf of the Islamic State posting anti-American messages threatening U.S. soldiers and their families.
Let's get right to Fox 5's Linda Schmidt. She is live in the newsroom tonight with the very latest. Good evening, Linda.
Good evening to both of you. This is quite disturbing. Well, the military has suspended the Central Command Twitter site and terminated the YouTube site, and the Pentagon says no classified material was breached.
The Twitter page was filled with threats with the title Cyber Caliphate. The hackers warned American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back. The hackers claim to be working with ISIS and seized control today of the Twitter and YouTube sites of the military's U.S. Central Command, which is also referred to as CENTCOM. CENTCOM monitors countries like Afghanistan and Iran, but the Pentagon says the hackers were not able to access classified material. Identity theft expert Robert Siciliano runs an internet security company called Hotspot Shield. He does not believe that the military's actual Twitter and YouTube sites were hacked.
It's very difficult for anyone to hack Twitter or YouTube. Generally, it's the user of those accounts that is actually hacked.
Siciliano believes that an employee at U.S. Central Command was the victim of phishing.
An employee of CENTCOM got an email thinking it was coming from either Twitter or from YouTube and coughed up those passwords thinking that they were in fact giving up their passwords to a legitimate entity.
We don't know for certain that that is what happened, but the Pentagon swiftly suspended the sites and is investigating. Other postings by the hackers appear to list names, phone numbers, and personal email addresses of military personnel. Today's hacking coincidentally happened on the very same day that President Obama was laying out a plan in Washington, D.C. to help Americans combat identity theft. The president was responding to concerns following last month's hack on Sony Pictures.
Okay, now cyber and identity theft experts say this is really a valuable lesson for everyone here with this story, that you should never ever give up your username or your password to anyone sending you an email or calling you. Now again, I want to reiterate this, we don't know that that's what happened in this case, but experts are saying it's just very practical, uh, it's a very practical thing to do. It's the best way to protect yourself. And of course we're going to stay on top of this story for you, and anything that develops, we will bring it to you. Stephen Carey, back up to you in the studio.
