As if to put an exclamation point on the issue, at about the same time the President was announcing new cybersecurity initiatives in advance of next week's State of the Union address came reports that the U.S. military's Central Command Twitter account and YouTube channel had been hacked and pro-ISIS messages posted as well as documents about military officials. The hack prompted its own response from a key Legislators.
The Republican chairman of the House's Homeland Security Committee used the hack as an opportunity to press the Obama Administration for cybersecurity protections.
"As I have repeatedly warned in the past, extremists are developing the capability to conduct cyber attacks against U.S. interests and those of our allies," said chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.). "The fact that individuals claiming to be affiliated with ISIS took control of the U.S. military's Central Command's social media accounts today is severely disturbing. Assaults from cyber-jihadists will become more common unless the administration develops a strategy for appropriately responding to these cyber attacks —including those like the North Korea attack against Sony. Without laying out the rules of the game for offensive responses and having direct consequences, cyber threats and intrusions from our adversaries will continue and escalate."
A White House spokesman said the Administration was looking into it, but that there was a difference between a large-scale data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account.
