The United States Central Command reactivated its Twitter and YouTube accounts after a hack Monday, and is cooperating with the FBI in the agency’s investigation into a breach of its accounts by a group calling itself Cyber Caliphate. No details have been provided regarding any changes in security for CENTCOM’s social media profiles.
As a result of the hack attack on some of CENTCOM’s social media accounts, the Office of the Secretary of Defense ordered Tuesday that the passwords for 50 social media accounts within the Secretary’s office be changed, and that it review procedures for managing the accounts and provide tips to all account administrators on how to best protect the accounts. The orders apply only to those accounts within the Defense Secretary’s office.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called the social media hack "a violation" on Tuesday, but added that it "wasn't a big deal."
"This diffusion of economic power and technological power has empowered countries and non-state actors," Hagel said at an appearance a Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. "Technology has empowered them and we have to be smarter than they are, and we have more to defend."
Meanwhile, Gregory Touhill, deputy assistant secretary for cybersecurity operations at the Department of Homeland Security, emphasized on Tuesday that Twitter is a public platform, not a government website or system.
“There was no compromise, and there’s no evidence of any penetration into government, specifically the military computer systems,” Touhill said. “Rather, it was a commercially facing bulletin board as it were, through the Twitter account.”
Defense officials point out that the Defense Department and military have thousands of social media accounts. As of now the Pentagon has not issued system-wide instructions or warnings regarding the handling of those social media accounts.
IN-DEPTH
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SOCIAL
--- Jim Miklaszewski and NBC News Staff