A group describing itself as the "CyberCaliphate" apparently gained control of the official Twitter and YouTube pages of US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Monday and began posting messages supportive of the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS).
The hack occurred at the same time as President Barack Obama was giving a speech on cybersecurity at the offices of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C.
On Twitter, the group posted a message that declared "Pentagon networks hacked" where they indicated they broke into military "networks and personal devices." In the message the "CyberCaliphate" identified themselves as being "under the auspices of ISIS." They also included links to what they described as leaked military files. They then began posting screenshots they described as "China scenarios."
In addition to posting the messages, some of which included threats against US soldiers, the hackers changed the CENTCOM account's avatar to a picture of a masked jihadi along with the message "i love you isis." CENTCOM is overseeing the US military effort against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Similar messages and images appeared on CENTCOM's YouTube page.
Business Insider reached out to representatives from CENTCOM, the White House, and the Pentagon on Monday to ask about the apparent hack. None of them immediately responded to our request. According to the Daily Beast's Nancy Youssef, the Pentagon was at a "standstill" as staffers watched the messages publish on the hacked pages. A CENTCOM representative told the Daily Beast "we are all working on it."
Within less than 40 minutes, the messages were deleted. The CENTCOM Twitter account is empty as of this writing.
Last week, a hacker who also used the name Cyber Caliphate, hacked the Twitter feed of the Albuquerque Journal newspaper.
This post was last updated at 1:09 p.m.