Today, individuals claiming to be ISIS (@cybercaliphate) hijacked U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts during President Obama’s speech on increasing U.S. cybersecurity. They also released a bunch of previously released and publicly available military documents that are years old from the CENTCOM account, claiming they’d “hacked” them from U.S. military mainframes which they hadn’t.
In the grand scheme of things this means literally nothing in terms of the U.S.’s computer systems vulnerabilities and everything for Twitter’s and YouTube’s (because the Pentagon doesn’t run these sites, obviously) but that hasn’t stopped some from becoming very worried that they’re gonna get us.
First here’s how you should be looking at these hacks, courtesy of XKCD via Twitter.
https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/554708111395926016
Actually it’s even less threatening than tearing down a poster. It’s more like someone tearing down a CentCom poster that was on loan to someone else but here’s how some people are trying to spin it, that it means something. Piers Morgan really took the bait and ran with it.
What else did they hack? What else CAN they hack? #ISIS #CENTCOM
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 12, 2015
This hacking of #CENTCOM is troubling. Ver troubling. Especially since the President just gave a presser on cybersecurity.
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) January 12, 2015
#ISIS hacks #CENTCOM account and posting apparent photos from inside US bases and personal info of US commanders. #cybersecurity
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) January 12, 2015
Have to imagine there are some serious OPSEC concerns at the moment re: #Centcom … chasing.
— Cal Perry (@CalNBC) January 12, 2015
And there’s this hilarious exchange over at Fox Nation’s comments section:
And this hilarious comment about securing the entire internet:
Luckily, there are a number of funny and sane individuals on the Twitters that saw the event for what it was, an opportunity to make jokes.
Somewhere, a general is screaming into his mobile phone at someone at Twitter. #centcom #hack
— Kaj Leers 🇳🇱🇪🇺 (@kajleers) January 12, 2015
https://twitter.com/Kronykal/status/554701452535664640
And one very smart person pointed out that the general population’s ignorance about how the internet works or, well, what it even is, really, should be paid no heed. 
"Clearly we just need to give the government more power over the Internet." -people who should be ignored #CENTCOM
— Tamara Winter (@_TamaraWinter) January 12, 2015
