Syrian Electronic Army hacked the US CENTCOM

Syrian Electronic Army hacked the US CENTCOM and it is threatening to leak secret documents due US decision to hit Syria with electronic warfare attacks.

Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is the group of hackers that most of all is threatening the giants of the IT industry and media, the list of victims is very long (Facebook, Microsoft, NYT, Twitter, Forbes, EBay and many others).

This time the Syrian Electronic Army has hit the U.S Central Command (CENTCOM), the group shared an image of the central repository of CENTCOM. The image is related to folders composing the repository of Army Knowledge Online (AKO) which provides web-based enterprise information services to the United States Army. The Army Knowledge Online is considered the “the world’s largest intranet”.

The scaring aspect of this last clamorous attack is that the group has announced to have already successfully compromised other repositories of the US Military.

“This is part of an on-going operation and we have already successfully penetrated many central repositories. #SEA” states a tweet from the official Twitter account of the group of hackers.

If the announcement was true, there will be the concrete risk that the Syrian Electronic Army will expose hundreds of secret documents leaked in the last hack.

“In the coming days we will update you with specific details and hundreds of documents that the #SEA has obtained.”

In time I’m writing, there are no news regarding the level of exposure of the CENTCOM network, it is still no clear if the hackers have compromised also CENTCOM central repository. The tweets from the Syrian Electronic Army explicitly refer mentioned the President Obama’s decision to conduct electronic warfare attacks against the Syria.

In case of a cyber attack against Syrian Government the CENTCOM is directly involved, that’s why the Syrian Electronic Army has targeted the US Army. Following a short description of CENTOM Division:

“U.S.Central Command (CENTCOM) is one of nine unified commands in the United States military. Six of these commands, including CENTCOM, have an area of responsibility (AOR), which is a specific geographic region of the world where the combatant commanders may plan and conduct operations as defined under the Unified Command Plan.”

The attack has not occurred unexpectedly, The Syrian Electronic Army has given warning in advance on 28th February via a tweet that anticipated the offensive

“The next attack will prove that the entire US command structure was a house of cards from the start. #SEA #CENTCOM”.

What documents were stolen? Who will be the next?

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Syrian Electronic Army, CENTCOM)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.