After taking over social media channels that belonged to United States Central Command last month, a group of hackers who called themselves as CyberCaliphate have briefly took over yet another high profile social media account just moments ago. This time, it is Newsweek’s Twitter account.
Apart from replacing the account’s display and header images, the group who is apparently affiliated with Islamic State (ISIS) has also tweeted a threat against the First Lady of United States, Michelle Obama and her family. In addition to that, the group has also claimed that it is in possession of classified military documents and has tweeted some of them online including organization chart of Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy and a certificate from US Department of Defense.
That being said, we have no knowledge on the actual level of sensitivity that these documents have. Nevertheless, all these tweets and images were swiftly deleted within 30 minutes of their appearance on Newsweek’s Twitter page who have around 2.5 million followers at the moment.
In a statement, Newsweek’s managing editor Kira Bindrim has confirmed that the publication’s Twitter account has indeed being hack. Not much information were revealed in the brief statement but she did pointed out that the company “are working to strengthen our newsroom security measures going forward,“. Her personal response sounded slightly less serious though, as shown on the tweet below:
RT @Newsweek: We're back on Twitter after being hacked: http://t.co/CwL3KU4pVK pic.twitter.com/aIkndSal8T
— Kira Bindrim (@KiraBind) February 10, 2015
Well, back to business, we suppose.
[Source: Newsweek. Thanks for the tips, Lainey!]
