America
Newsweek's Twitter account hacked by group linked to IS
New York, Feb 11
Newsweek magazine Tuesday
was the target of a cyberattack when its Twitter account was hacked
into by a group allegedly affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), who
called for a "cyberjihad" against the US, published documents apparently
stolen from the Pentagon and wished First Lady Michelle Obama a "Bloody
Valentine's Day".
"While the US and its satellites are killing
our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, we are destroying your
national cybersecurity system from inside," read the text that was
posted on the magazine's Twitter account by a group calling itself
"CyberCaliphate" about 10:45 a.m.
The hacker -- or group of
hackers -- threatened Americans, saying that "the Islamic State is
already here" and that the IS is "much closer than you think".
The
hackers also published a list of "brave mujahideen", documents
allegedly from the Pentagon with data about US soldiers, and tweeted to
the First Lady: "We're watching you, you (sic) girls and your husband!"
Finally,
the hackers included the message "Je Suis IS" (I am IS) referring to
the hashtag "Je Suis Charlie" created after the recent deadly terrorist
attack against Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Newsweek said that
all the tweets were removed about 10 or 15 minutes after being posted,
when Twitter's support team regained control of the account at the
request of the magazine, which said that the attackers were the same
people who hacked into the accounts of singer Taylor Swift and the US
Central Command.
"We apologise to our readers for anything
offensive that might have been sent from our account during that period,
and (we) are working to strengthen our newsroom security measures going
forward," said the magazine's managing editor, Kira Bindrim, in a
statement.