The US military has reportedly fixed two of its websites that were defaced to display pro-Kurdish messages and shout out President Donald Trump, the latest case of hackers breaching systems run by the federal government in recent months.
Security researcher Ronald Lovelace told Cyberscoop, which reported for the first time the distortions, that error pages were altered at two US military websites, the Open Innovation Lab and the AI Integration Center, which test and integrate artificial intelligence and other technology into emerging technologies.
Garbled messages would appear when someone tried to visit a web page that did not exist on the sites.
The website’s error pages were defaced with messages calling Trump a “pedophile” and a “thief,” likely referring to the president’s lengthy name in Justice Department files on the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The messages also cited Tom Barrack, the current US ambassador to Turkey, and called for a “free Kurdistan”.
The distortions were visible as of Monday, per Cyberscoop. The publication contacted the Army, which took down the pages soon after.
The US military did not say how the error pages were defaced. Army websites appear to run on WordPress and rely on many plugins, which can be targeted by hackers seeking to break into websites. It is unclear if any data was stolen during the incident. Cyberscoop said the military is investigating the incident.
A spokesperson for the US Department of Defense did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Hacktivists typically deface or modify websites with the goal of raising awareness about political causes, but such attacks can also be devastating. Earlier this year, hacktivists targeted the US Department of Homeland Security and released bundles of files about contracts that allow US immigration authorities, such as ICE, to carry out deportations.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed another breach this week after hackers breached one of the department’s information-sharing platforms used to transmit information between state, local and federal authorities.
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