ISIS Releases US Military Personnel Info, Urges Attacks

Claimed to be the hacking division of Islamic State, a group has released data of 1,400 US military and government personnel in spreadsheet that includes the email addresses, passwords and phone numbers of the officers. The group also has urged supporters of ISIS to attack the listed officials.

The data was published online on public domain and includes names of NASA officials, marine corps, FBI, air force and state department too.

A report published in The Guardian writes a person claiming to be a part of the group has informed the data was collected from government and military database. However, the US army says reaching to their database is not possible by hackers and it is doubtful they have the genuine and current information of officials.

According to army chief of staff Gen Ray Odierno, the ISIS has earlier too claimed twice of similar data leaks, but the lists with them were never taken from cyber attack. The current database published online too is of no difference, but they are still taking the matter seriously at their end.

Computer security expert too throws doubt on the published data. Troy Hunt says the information may have been taken from publicly available one or from the existing data breaches. Even the passwords mentioned are not strong enough to believe may have come from government or corporate database. Some of the passwords are just of three letters length.

Meanwhile, Pentagon has said the matter is being looked in, but most of the passwords do not even match with their requirements.

The first spreadsheet was posted by British national Junaid Hussain, who is in the most wanted list of CIA. He is a member and supporter of ISIS and is also linked to the attack on prophet-Muhammed drawing contest earlier this year in May in Texas.