ISIS Hacking Group Claims 664 Twitter, Facebook Accounts Breached in Past 90 Days

Resembling an infographic from a cyber company, an Islamic State hacking unit released what they say is a 60-day status report on the extent of their operations on popular social media platforms.

The “Inghimasat dawlawiya team” — Inghimasi refers to a special-forces jihadist who draws out the attack and may return alive from a successful mission to attack again, while dawla means “state” — posted their stats in Arabic, French and English infographics and shared them through social media channels.

According to the hacking team, they “created and shared” 300 Twitter accounts over the past two months as the social media giant says it’s been cracking down on jihadist content.

The group also claims to have hacked 264 Facebook accounts over the past three months, though they don’t elaborate on which kinds of users they’re targeting.

Among the 400 Twitter accounts they claim to have hacked were four accounts with more than 10,000 followers, the group added.

In October, ISIS supporters renewed a call for online operatives to become cyber jihadists. A posting distributed in English, Arabic and French by the Ashhad Media Foundation showed a hooded figure in front of a laptop computer branded with the ISIS insignia and icons of social media sites in the background, including Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram and YouTube. They also included the employment networking site LinkedIn.

“Oh supporter, If you didn’t do anything or obligated not to fulfill the call of ‘Jihad’ against the coalition of the infidels in the battlefield, why not fulfilling the call of ‘Jihad’ in the Media field?!” stated the message, which was also distributed over the summer of 2017 as well as the fall.

Ashhad had been calling on supporters on Telegram to go open Twitter and Facebook accounts to spread ISIS propaganda as needed. In September 2017, Ashhad put out a call for hackers to go after anti-ISIS Facebook accounts.

The previous year, Ashhad published a social media guide, “O Knights of Media, Descend for Combat with Allah’s Enemies and Fight with Them,” with a cover image of a jihadist shooting computer screens with Twitter and Facebook logos on them.

PJM reported that year on ISIS recruiters — some on U.S. soil, some located overseas — using Twitter accounts cloaked in innocent avatars of babies or kitten photos to prey on lonely young teen American, non-Muslim girls to convince them to be ISIS sex slaves or to conduct attacks at home. They take time to reel in their prey, and if a girl tries to back out of the new relationship, it can mean trouble. “The ISIS members start making threats, even death threats,” one hacker said. “I’ve had a girl who told me they asked her to blow up a major place in her town, which I won’t specify for her safety. And they even forwarded her bomb instructions.”