Anonymous Traces Centcom Hack To Maryland

1/13/2015
Pat Dollard.com

Excerpted from USA Today: The Twitter and YouTube accounts of the Pentagon’s command for its forces in the Middle East were hacked Monday, according to U.S. Central Command.

The command’s Twitter and YouTube sites “were compromised for approximately 30 minutes,” a statement released by CENTCOM said. “These sites reside on commercial, non-Defense Department servers, and both sites have been temporarily taken offline while we look into the incident further. 

CENTCOM’s operational military networks were not compromised, and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command.”

“We view this as little more than a prank,” said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. “No (Pentagon) systems or computers were compromised.”

Tampa-based Central Command oversees U.S. forces battling militants in Iraq and Syria, as well as its troops in Afghanistan. Along with the U.S. Special Operations Command, it is located at MacDill Air Force Base.

A group calling itself the CyberCaliphate claimed responsibility for the hack.

A Twitter account from a group identifying itself as Anonymous said Monday it had tracked the source of the hack to Maryland, but that was not confirmed by official sources.

Keep reading