- Dec 30, 2012
- 4,809
Computer hackers from Syria infiltrated the US Army’s website and compromised crucial information on Monday — forcing military officials to go offline indefinitely.
“Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting,” a pop-up message on www.army.mil read at around 2:14pm, according to a tweet sent by the Syrian Electronic Army.
The US Army said they temporarily took down its website after the Pro-Palestine group hacked in to an element of the army.mil service provider’s content.
“After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website,” said Army Brigadier, General Malcolm Frost, the chief of Army public affairs.
The SEA first claimed responsibility for the hack on Twitter at around 11:48 a.m. on Monday.
Throughout the day, they posted screenshots from the Army site — including one that appeared to show sensitive employee information, such as first and last names, usernames, office email addresses and the active statuses of users.
“The #SEA hacks the official website of the US Army and leave several messages on it,” the group tweeted.
Coincidentally, President Obama spoke about cyber terrorism at a press conference Monday at the G7 summit in Germany — where he pointed out how the US has outdated computer systems with “significant vulnerabilities.”
“This problem is not going to go away,” he said, in response to an online attack last week on US government computers that compromised the personnel records of an estimated 4 million current and former federal government employees.
“It is going to accelerate,” he explained. “And that means that we have to be as nimble, as aggressive and as well-resourced as those who are trying to break into these systems.”
As of Monday afternoon, attempts to gain access to the Army website continued to result in an error message.
“Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting,” a pop-up message on www.army.mil read at around 2:14pm, according to a tweet sent by the Syrian Electronic Army.
The US Army said they temporarily took down its website after the Pro-Palestine group hacked in to an element of the army.mil service provider’s content.
“After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website,” said Army Brigadier, General Malcolm Frost, the chief of Army public affairs.
The SEA first claimed responsibility for the hack on Twitter at around 11:48 a.m. on Monday.
Throughout the day, they posted screenshots from the Army site — including one that appeared to show sensitive employee information, such as first and last names, usernames, office email addresses and the active statuses of users.
“The #SEA hacks the official website of the US Army and leave several messages on it,” the group tweeted.
Coincidentally, President Obama spoke about cyber terrorism at a press conference Monday at the G7 summit in Germany — where he pointed out how the US has outdated computer systems with “significant vulnerabilities.”
“This problem is not going to go away,” he said, in response to an online attack last week on US government computers that compromised the personnel records of an estimated 4 million current and former federal government employees.
“It is going to accelerate,” he explained. “And that means that we have to be as nimble, as aggressive and as well-resourced as those who are trying to break into these systems.”
As of Monday afternoon, attempts to gain access to the Army website continued to result in an error message.