The Syrian Electronic Army is taking credit for hacking the U.S. Army’s public website.
On Monday afternoon, the site was disabled after it displayed messages including, “YOU’VE BEEN HACKED” and “YOUR COMMANDERS ADMIT THEY ARE TRAINING THE PEOPLE THEY HAVE SENT YOU TO DIE FIGHTING,” according to NBC News.
The U.S. Army confirmed to CNN the web page had been compromised.
“Today an element of the Army.mil service provider’s content was compromised. After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily,” spokesman Brig. Gen. Malcom B. Frost said in a statement.
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The Syrian Electronic Army later claimed the attack on Twitter, sharing a screen-shot of one of the pop-ups on the Army’s website with the caption, “One of #SEA messages left on the US Army website. #SEA #USArmy.”
Additionally, the Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Army Base official Facebook page warned its followers, “Avoid using www.army.mil for the time being. The web site is currently down, reportedly from being hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.”
The Army’s website, Army.mil, does not contain any confidential information, but acts as an informational tool for the public.
The Syrian Electronic Army is a pro-Assad regime group that has been associated with a number of additional cyber-attacks in the past. The victims of their previous hacks have included organizations like the Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press.
In the case of The Associated Press, in 2013, the Syrian Electronic Army falsely tweeted from the AP Twitter account that there had been an attack on the White House, which resulted in the stock market dropping nearly 150 points in just 2 minutes equating to about $136 billion in equity market value, according to report by The Washington Post.
CNN’s Barbara Starr contributed to this report.