’’ISIS’-Cyber Caliphate’ Claims Hacking US Officials’ Accounts

Local Editor

A group called "Cyber Caliphate", set up by "ISIS" terrorist Junaid Hussain, hacked into more than 54,000 Twitter accounts. The terror group's move comes after a drone attack killed a British "ISIS" terrorist.

The group published details of the Twitter accounts along with passwords online on Sunday. Cyber-terrorism experts said the Takfiri group's move is heightening the scale of global cyber war. "It is very worrying that terrorists are gathering data in this way," cyber security expert Tony McDowell was quoted as saying.

Hussain, who hails from Birmingham, had urged the group's followers to use Twitter accounts to spread "ISIS" propaganda before he was killed by a US drone in a joint operation involving the UK in August. His wife Sally Jones from Kent, a mother of two, is on the UK government's list of most dangerous "ISIS" recruiters from the country.

Details of more than 54,000 Twitter accounts, including passwords, were published last week in what experts described as a dangerous escalation of the global cyber war.

Most of the victims of the Twitter hack are based in Saudi Arabia, but some are feared to be British. Under the hacked Twitter accounts, the terror group posted its rhetoric and also divulged hacked phone numbers of heads of the US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], the US Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] and the US National Security Agency [NSA].

It is said that a security agency contacted Twitter, which quickly suspended the hacked accounts. "Posting another person's private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter rules. Users may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism," a Twitter spokesman was quoted as saying.

The incident follows Home Secretary Theresa May's proposed Investigatory Powers Bill that will give the police and security agencies the power to snoop on suspects by going through their internet activity. Under the measure, internet activities of everyone in the UK would be stored for a year.

This comes days after the US claimed the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard hacked similar accounts, an accusation the Republic didn't adopt.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team