A tweet purportedly posted by ISIS claims the terror group will carry out a cyber attack on Monday, May 11 at 2 PM EST.
#أخبار_الخلافة #رابطة_الأنصار قريبا #هكر_رابطة_الأنصار يقدم لكم: رسالة إلى أمريكا من الأرض إلى العالم الرقمي pic.twitter.com/U9d3CvpAEF
— أستغفر الله #الخلافة (@IsCaliphateIs) May 11, 2015
The tweet, dubbed “Message to America” and posted in Arabic, says ISIS hackers will do something “surprising” that “will frighten America.”
In January ISIS allegedly hacked the U.S. central military command. “Pentagon networks hacked. AMERICAN SOLDIERS WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS. #CyberCaliphate,” a tweeted message from Pastebin stated.
“The CENTCOM hack matters because it demonstrates that the Cyber Caliphate’s skills are developing. No, the group didn’t access classified systems or even unclassified ones. What’s more likely is that the group picked CENTCOM for a different reason – because it would get more attention than the previous intrusions they’ve claimed,” The National Interest wrote following the cyber attack.
While the government and the corporate media played up the supposed ISIS Cyber Caliphate threat, others questioned if the attack had anything at all to do with ISIS.
“The Islamic State and its real followers never use the acronym ISIS for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” notes the Moon of Alabama blog. “In their mind the Islamic State is not confined to the borders of Iraq and Syria. It is universal and has no geographical limits. Any real follower of the Islamic State will know this.”
My conclusion is that these were some cyberpunks. Some media guy at Centcom was owned and revealed his password after some social fishing through an email. Or his iPhone was stolen and cracked. Or something similar. Some “hacker” had fun with that. A rather common and irrelevant incident. A fitting XKCD comic strip is here.
Or this “incident” was some military Information Operation to further Obama’s attempts to introduce more extensive internet spying which he is likely to push for in next week’s State of the Union speech.
It would fit to the false claim by the Obama administration that the Sony hack, likely done by former Sony employees, was somehow related to North Korea.
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