Hackers claiming to be with the Islamic State terror group infiltrated U.S. Central Command’s official Twitter account Monday.
“ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from @CENTCOM’s account.
The account also reportedly tweeted images of spreadsheets containing the home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of dozens of current and former Army generals.
“AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING WATCH YOUR BACK,” another tweet said.
The @CENTCOM Twitter account was suspended shortly after 1:00 p.m. ET. Images posted by the hackers had been yanked off the twitter feed shortly before it was suspended.
The Obama administration downplayed the apparent hacking, saying the incident isn’t nearly as serious as the cyberattack on Sony Pictures late last year.
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“There is a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “We’re still examining and investigating the extent of this incident. But I don’t have any information beyond that.”
Officials also say this incident is very different from the attack on Sony, in which North Korean hackers acquired huge amounts of data — including embarrassing emails — and publicly released them.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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