The U.S. Army has reportedly fixed two of its websites that had been defaced to display pro-Kurdish messages and to call out President Donald Trump, the latest case of hackers compromising systems run by the federal government in recent months.
Security researcher Ronald Lovelace told Cyberscoop, which first reported the defacements, that error pages were modified on two U.S. Army websites, the Open Innovation Lab and the AI Integration Center, which test and integrate AI and other tech into emerging technologies.
The defaced messages would show up when someone tried to visit a webpage that didn’t exist on the websites.
The websites’ error pages had been altered with messages calling Trump a “pedophile” and a “thief,” likely referring to the President being extensively named in files held by the Justice Department concerning the late financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The messages also mentioned Tom Barrack, the current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and called for a “free Kurdistan.”
The defacements were visible as of Monday, per Cyberscoop. The publication contacted the Army, which took the pages down soon after.
The U.S. Army did not say how the error pages were defaced. The Army’s websites appear to run on WordPress and rely on several plugins, which can be targeted by hackers who seek to break into websites. It’s not clear if any data was stolen during the incident. Cyberscoop said the Army was investigating the incident.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Hacktivists typically deface or modify websites, aiming to raise awareness about political causes, but such attacks can also be destructive. Earlier this year, hacktivists targeted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and published reams of records on contracts that enable U.S. immigration authorities, like ICE, to carry out deportations.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed another breach this week, after hackers broke into one of the department’s intelligence sharing platforms used for passing information between state, local and federal authorities.
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Zack Whittaker is the security editor at TechCrunch. He also authors the weekly cybersecurity newsletter, this week in security.
He can be reached via encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Signal. You can also contact him by email, or to verify outreach, at zack.whittaker@techcrunch.com.
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